Dementia specialist nurses in East Anglia are providing training to colleagues that is designed to improve communication with their patients.
Nurses at North West Anglia NHS Foundation Trust are offering in-house ‘interpreter training’ to aid a range of staff to look beyond the spoken word when it comes to barriers to understanding.
“The training is not about interpreting the spoken word, but more about understanding non-verbal communication”
Alsion Gray
Among other techniques, it uses masks and earmuffs to restrict the trainees ability to see and hear as communication barriers.
Sessions are available to nurses, healthcare assistants, medical students, apprentices, hospital volunteers and other staff who provide care to, or come into contact with, dementia patients.
The trust said, due to demand, the courses ran regularly at Peterborough City Hospital and at Hinchingbrooke Hospital, Huntingdon – and put the trainees in a patient and carer role play situation.
Since it was introduced 18 months ago, some 89 members of trust staff have attended the three-hour course, according to North West Anglia.
Dementia nurse specialist Alison Gray and dementia advisor Sherly Binu are both qualified to deliver the training course, the completion of which means staff become a registered Dementia Interpreter Level 1.
Ms Gray said: “The training is not about interpreting the spoken word, but more about understanding non-verbal communication and being able to accurately interpret body language, actions or gestures to understand and meet the patient’s needs and feelings.
“This training provides an alternative way to communicate with people with dementia, putting the nursing teams in the patients’ shoes so that they can experience barriers in communication,” she said.
“For example, the training can include the restriction of hands to allow communication only by movement of the legs, head gestures or use of facial expressions. It also impairs the trainee’s senses such as speech, eyesight and hearing.”
She added: “Many of our dementia patients communicate non-verbally, and one of the aims of the training is to give trainees the tools to be able to interpret various forms of physical communication.”
Fellow trainer Ms Binu added: “We are delighted to be able to offer this training to our staff.
“It is an exceptional programme that can advance their knowledge and place them in the shoes of people who have dementia to help them to understand the challenges they face every day and ensure their voice is heard.”
Among those to have successfully completed the training is apprentice HCA Megan Goodridge.
“This training was an eye-opener to just how much people with dementia suffer in so many other aspects beyond memory,” said Ms Goodridge.
“As a healthcare worker, I have learned that patience is important, as well as being calm and understanding that patients cannot communicate the way we are used to,” she said.
“Other ways of communicating can include touch – with patients knowing I am next to them, letting them feel what you’re trying to do, writing on a whiteboard so they can see what you’re saying, etc.”
North West Anglia NHS Foundation Trust was formed on 1 April 2017, combining Hinchingbrooke Health Care NHS Trust and Peterborough and Stamford Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.
The trust runs Peterborough City Hospital, Stamford and Rutland Hospital and Hinchingbrooke Hospital.