Care UK shares dementia training expertise with Suffolk students

An expert in the challenges of effective dementia care provision, Maizie Mears-Owen, who is head of dementia at Care UK, has been contributing towards the learning and development of Masters students at the University Campus Suffolk (UCS).

Taking an innovative approach, Mears-Owen held an activity-filled lecture that was designed to better inform students of the effects dementia can have through making the most of specialist technology; including glasses that blur vision, headphones that deliver white noise, and gloves that restrict finger movement.

Mears-Owen, who uses the same technique to train Care UK’s dementia carers, explains: “This training gives a direct experience of the dramatic effect that dementia and frailty can have on the senses.”

“After the experiences I ask participants how they feel, and then ask them how someone with dementia would feel in an equally strange and confusing situation. Their frustration is exactly how the person with dementia may react if something happens to them that they don’t understand or like. If this begins, and carers are not empathetic, the therapeutic relationship breaks down.”

The provider has been nominated for several awards since developing the training programme, implemented throughout Care UK’s portfolio of eighty-seven care and nursing homes with the direction of three specialist trainers.

Mears-Owen continues: “Care UK puts a great deal of emphasis on giving its employees the skills and expertise they need in areas like dementia where we have become specialists. I believe as a society we need to build a far greater understanding of dementia and I was delighted to be asked to lecture to the mature students who are furthering their knowledge. I hope they will take a deeper understanding back to their work environments.”