Supportive measures requires 70 pairs of eyes at Springdale
Wednesday, July 26, 2006 -- Natalie Miller
While Springdale Country Manor has a supportive measures specialist on the floor at all times, Scott Ladoucier says 70 sets of eyes can’t compare to his one pair.

The personal support worker and his supportive measures colleagues are rallying everyone who works at the Springville nursing home to get on board implementing dementia care approaches. They’ve developed an assessment form to help make it easier for the home’s approximately 70 employees to take note of residents’ dementia-related behaviours.

“It’s the first step in our department taking a closer look at what’s occurring with our residents,” says Scott.

“There are so many people out on the floor,” says Scott. “If (staff members) see something they have to let (us) know.”

The forms, available at the nurses’ station, contain space for staff to provide a rough description of a resident’s behaviour, how often it’s occurring, whether it’s a new behaviour and potential triggers. The employee or employees filling out the form are asked to provide their names so a member of the supportive measures team can meet with those employees to discuss the resident further. From there, supportive measures staff can fact-gather and strategize to develop a plan to best support the resident.

Scott has received two forms so far from housekeeping staff. With this new information, “a lot of us weren’t aware of”, Scott plans to interview the residents’ family members to determine if their histories play a role in their behaviours and to solicit intervention suggestions.

Scott, personal support worker Sandra Munro, activation aide Kathy McKeown and clinical care co-ordinator Kathy Shewel make up the supportive measures team at Springdale. They recently took 12 supportive measures training sessions offered by FCS International through OMNI that introduced them to the dementia care approaches and equipped them with the skills to train their colleagues.

Supportive measures is a practice whereby caregivers focus on individual needs and preferences of residents living with Alzheimer disease or related dementia. By identifying factors that trigger resident disease-related agitation, interventions can be put in place to remove many of these factors from the resident’s daily life and reduce the need for psychotropic medications.

About 50 OMNI employees took the training to become certified educational trainers and resource personnel. Students in the course have to complete a 60-page in-depth resident profile on a resident by September.