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Dementia Care: Living Well as Dementia Progresses

Better understand effective dementia care and how dementia progresses and prepare for the future with this award-winning course.

7,641 enrolled on this course

Paper chain of people.
  • Duration

    3 weeks
  • Weekly study

    3 hours

Get dementia care advice if you or someone you know is living with dementia

As dementia progresses, those with the condition are less able to share their views and wishes. Families and healthcare professionals may have to make difficult decisions on their behalf.

Studies show that it’s best to talk about the future early on, with the support of a healthcare professional. This aids decision making and helps to respect the person with dementia’s wishes.

On this course, you’ll learn how to be better prepared and supported for living with dementia yourself or caring for someone living with the disease.

You will learn ways to ensure good quality of life and comfort for both the carer and the person living with dementia.

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Skip to 0 minutes and 11 seconds The numbers of people with dementia are rising rapidly, in fact every three seconds one person is diagnosed with dementia worldwide. This means for most of us, at some point in our lives, we will have friends or family or meet people in the community who are living with dementia. This course

Skip to 0 minutes and 33 seconds built on our first course Dementia Care: Staying Connected and Living Well - but we’re going to focus on the more advanced stages of the illness. This can be a challenging time, both for families and for healthcare professionals, because the person with dementia has great difficulty communicating their wishes and their needs. We know through our research that there are particular areas that families and healthcare professionals find challenging during this time and we’re going to focus on them during this course.

Skip to 1 minute and 2 seconds We hope that by the end of it you’ll feel more confident about having discussions about the future and future care planning, that you’ll better understand some of the areas where you’ll need to be involved in making decisions for your relatives future care, that you’ll feel more empowered to work with healthcare professionals to ensure that the person with dementia gets good quality care and also, we will explore what makes a person with dementia feel comfortable as the illness progresses. But most importantly we’ll look at how to look after yourselves while you’re caring for someone with dementia. We hope that you’ll use your own experiences to share with others throughout the course.

Skip to 1 minute and 49 seconds We hope you’ll enjoy this course and find it useful so please sign up and join us now.

What topics will you cover?

  • Understanding the progression and symptoms of dementia
  • The potential for involving the person with dementia in decisions
  • Signposting to services that may be useful to families as the illness progresses
  • Exploring sources of support for carers and people living with dementia across a range of different settings
  • Exploring ways to ensure care and communication is person-centred
  • Identifying ways to maintain quality of life and ensuring comfort for the person living with dementia
  • The course will support learners to apply these learning resources to their own situation.

Learning on this course

On every step of the course you can meet other learners, share your ideas and join in with active discussions in the comments.

What will you achieve?

By the end of the course, you‘ll be able to...

  • Explore the progression and symptoms of dementia
  • Describe the potential for involving the person with dementia in decisions
  • Summarise the services that may be useful to families as the illness progresses
  • Explore sources of support for carers and people living with dementia across a range of different settings
  • Explore ways to ensure care and communication is person-centred
  • Identify ways to maintain quality of life and ensuring comfort for the person living with dementia
  • Apply these learning resources to their own situation.

Who is the course for?

This course is for designed for people living with dementia, or dementia carers and families of people with dementia.

The course is also ideal for healthcare professionals who ar interested in learning more about dementia or who are involved in caring for people with dementia.

Who will you learn with?

Marie is a Research Associate, Population Health Sciences Institute, Newcastle University; focusing on improving all aspects of care for people living with dementia, their families and professionals.

Louise is a professor of Primary Care and Ageing and Director of the Newcastle University Institute for Ageing. She is an experienced GP and leader in many aspects of improving dementia care

Heather is a Research Associate at the Newcastle University Institute for Ageing. Her interests are in the care of older people, particularly people living with dementia and their families.

Who developed the course?

Newcastle University

A thriving international community of over 20,000 students. The university’s mission as a world-class civic university means it applies its academic excellence to real-world challenges.

Endorsers and supporters

supported by

National Institute for Health Research logo

Learning on FutureLearn

Your learning, your rules

  • Courses are split into weeks, activities, and steps to help you keep track of your learning
  • Learn through a mix of bite-sized videos, long- and short-form articles, audio, and practical activities
  • Stay motivated by using the Progress page to keep track of your step completion and assessment scores

Join a global classroom

  • Experience the power of social learning, and get inspired by an international network of learners
  • Share ideas with your peers and course educators on every step of the course
  • Join the conversation by reading, @ing, liking, bookmarking, and replying to comments from others

Map your progress

  • As you work through the course, use notifications and the Progress page to guide your learning
  • Whenever you’re ready, mark each step as complete, you’re in control
  • Complete 90% of course steps and all of the assessments to earn your certificate

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