Dementia Awareness for Health and Care Staff

This dementia awareness training helps health and care staff understand dementia and support people living with it with skill, respect and compassion. It is written for anyone whose work brings them into contact with people living with dementia: care workers, healthcare support workers, nurses and nursing associates, doctors, allied health professionals, pharmacy, dental and optical professionals, paramedics, receptionists and other staff in hospitals, primary care, care homes, home care and community services.

Dementia affects close to a million people in the UK, by Alzheimer's Society's estimate, so almost every member of staff will meet people living with it, whatever their role. Many of the difficulties people experience are made better or worse by how others respond. A receptionist who moves to a quieter part of the desk, a care worker who shows two cups rather than asking an open question, or a nurse who looks for pain behind "aggression" can change someone's day. The course is built around that idea: when you have met one person with dementia, you have met one person with dementia.

It is designed to take about 2 hours, including reading, reflection points, a reflective account and a 15-question assessment, and is self-paced. You buy and take it on our course portal; the course catalogue lists related titles. Healthcare Practise UK is an independent provider. We are not affiliated with any UK regulator, inspectorate or the NHS, and none of them has reviewed this course.

The course draws on NICE guideline NG97 on dementia (2018) and NICE CG103 on delirium, and explains the dementia training frameworks used in each nation.

The course is relevant to the standards of the GMC, NMC, HCPC, GDC, GPhC and GOC, all of which expect registrants to treat people with dignity, support their decisions and act on safeguarding concerns. Completing it does not by itself show that you meet a particular tier or level of a framework; that depends on your employer's training programme and assessment of your practice.

1. Understanding dementia

What dementia is and is not, a comparison of Alzheimer's disease, vascular, mixed, Lewy body, frontotemporal and Parkinson's disease dementia, rarer forms such as posterior cortical atrophy, diagnosis and treatment, the stages of dementia, and myths, stigma, rights and respectful language. It notes the severe sensitivity to antipsychotics in dementia with Lewy bodies, and that newer antibody treatments licensed in the UK have not been recommended by NICE for routine NHS use at the time of writing.

2. Person-centred dementia care

Tom Kitwood's work on personhood and psychological needs, the everyday behaviours he called malignant social psychology (outpacing, ignoring, infantilising, labelling) and their alternatives, life story tools such as "This is me", working with families and carers, John's Campaign, and the frameworks in each nation.

3. Communication

How dementia affects understanding and expression, a table of practical techniques, why to avoid "Do you remember...?", responding to the feeling when a person's reality differs from yours, and dementia-friendly environments and sensory checks.

4. Understanding and responding to distress

Behaviour as communication of unmet need, ABC charts, pain as an under-recognised cause, observational pain tools such as the Abbey Pain Scale or PAINAD, NICE NG97's limits on antipsychotics with review at least every six weeks, covert medication, walking with purpose and the Herbert Protocol for missing persons.

5. Health, delirium and daily living

Telling delirium from dementia, hypoactive delirium, diagnostic overshadowing, eating, drinking, continence and sleep, and reducing harm during hospital admission and moves between services.

6. Rights, capacity, safeguarding and end of life

Decision-specific capacity and supported decision-making, deprivation of liberty (DoLS remain in force in England and Wales because the Liberty Protection Safeguards have not been implemented), signs of abuse and neglect, and advance care planning and comfort-focused care at the end of life.

Case illustrations run through each module: a woman who tries to leave every evening at five because she used to make her children's tea, a man who hits out only when helped to stand and turns out to have painful arthritis, and a home care client whose new "friend" is taking his money. Reflection points and "apply it" tasks ask you to use the learning on your next shift, and a quick-reference guide covers the situations staff meet most often.

The assessment has 15 scenario-based questions, such as a woman who becomes suddenly drowsy and muddled over one day, a man who must collect his children from school, and what is needed in England when a resident is constantly supervised and not free to leave. The pass mark is 12 out of 15 (80%); if you score lower, you revisit the linked sections and try again. Passing supports your learning record but does not by itself show competence.

Your reflective account covers how the course changes your understanding of one person, the techniques you will use, and what you will do differently on capacity, restriction, safeguarding or delirium. On completion you receive a certificate of completion from Healthcare Practise UK.

Nurses, midwives and nursing associates can record it towards the NMC's 35 hours of CPD over three years, usually as individual learning. Doctors can reflect on it for appraisal and GMC revalidation. HCPC registrants, pharmacy professionals, optometrists and dispensing opticians, and dental professionals can include it in their CPD record with reflection, following their regulator's current rules.

Care workers can use it to support Care Certificate Standard 9 learning in England, and registered social care workers in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland can use it as post-registration learning.

Teams across a whole service, from reception to clinical staff, often take it together so that everyone shares the same approach to communication and distress. It provides awareness-level learning; check your employer's requirements. See for organisations for team credits.

• Person-Centred Care, Dignity and Privacy for Care Workers;
• Nutrition and Hydration Awareness in Care Settings, for eating and drinking support;
• Falls Prevention Awareness in Care Settings, as delirium and dementia both raise falls risk;
• Mental Capacity Act and Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards, for capacity assessment and best interests in more depth;
• Safeguarding Adults: Essentials for Health and Care Staff;
• Learning Disability and Autism Awareness: Reasonable Adjustments, relevant because people with Down's syndrome have a much higher risk of Alzheimer's disease.

See the care sector training page or try which course do I need.