Effectiveness of Virtual Education Programs for Dementia Caregivers in Home Health Care

This research explores the effectiveness of virtual education programs for dementia caregivers in home health care. It discusses the benefits of virtual education for caregivers, patients, and the nurse community. The project aims to improve patient care and help caregivers cope with stress. The evaluation strategy includes interview questionnaires to measure the success of the project.

Running head: VIRTUAL EDUCATION FOR THE DEMENTIA CAREGIVERS
VIRTUAL EDUCATION FOR THE DEMENTIA CAREGIVERS
Name of the Student
Name of the university
Author’s note

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VIRTUAL EDUCATION FOR THE DEMENTIA CAREGIVERS
Project: Effectiveness of virtual education programs for dementia caregivers in home
health care
The research question that has been undertaken is the effectiveness of virtual education
for the dementia caregivers in the home health care. Home nurses caring for the dementia patient
are responsible for the implementation and supervision of the everyday activities of the patient
and encouraging involvement by cultivating a curative relationship with the client (Boots et al.,
2014). Hence a nurse needs to be suitably educated which becomes very difficult in case of a
home setting. Virtual education program in such cases can serve as effective methods of learning
for those nurses. In such cases the virtual teacher provides all the contents of the courses by the
help of course management applications, internet, video conferencing and other multimedia
resources (Kim, 2015).
The stakeholders that should be involved in the DNP project are the psychiatric nurse
practitioner, the home care nurses, the patient's family and the project manager. The virtual
education has to be given entirely online.
The non scientific stakeholders might not understand how virtual education can impact
on the patient itself but can definitely note down its effects on the caregivers. The non scientific
stakeholders might think that caregivers are entitled to give care to the patients at any cost but
would certainly not analyze the level of stress suffered by the caregivers. Audio-visual aids on
hallucinations, wandering and repetitive behavior can be shown to the scientific as well as the
non scientific stakeholders. The educational program can be delivered over a one hour period

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time with the allotted time for case discussions and answers through an online portal. The
registered nurse practitioners can demonstrate through that online portal.
All the ethical, social and political concerns have addressed before conduction of this
study. The involvement of human participants in research is for serving as a source to data. As a
researcher it is important to protect the autonomy of the people and to take the consent of the
participants before the conduction of the survey.
This research will provide the rationale for providing virtual education to the caregivers
who are engaged in home care and are unable to get one-to- one education. Such education will
provide the caregiver the ways out for coping with the stress that they encounter with during
their care regimen. Caregivers providing care to elderly patients often becomes victim to
violence and suffers from emotional turmoil due to the aggression and the violence faced from
the patients (Hostiuc et al., 2016). Virtual education can demonstrate the various non
pharmacological interventions that can be applied for enhancing the cognition of such patients
and influence their behavioral symptoms. The subjects such as the community of the nurses that
provide home care to the dementia patients will be benefitted (Kim, 2015). The funders and the
administrators will be facing the consequences on failure of the project. Dementia had become
one of the most common ailments found in elderly patient and more than half of the caregiver
caring for the dementia patients are suffering from fatigue, irritability, depression and burnout.
Virtual education to the caregivers may help the patient caregiver therapeutic relationship (Kim,
2015). Hence this approach will affect the larger population as this initiative can increase the
scope of the virtual education for the nurses.

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If the approach is not followed then the caregiver's stress might lead to job
dissatisfaction. The caregivers would not be able to cope up with the distressing behavior of the
patient. Furthermore caregivers in the home care support are not very well updated about the
advancements in nursing practice due to their decreased mobility (Du et al., 2013) Such an
approach would facilitate their learning within a home setting just due to the blessing of the
world of networking.
Reflecting about the feedback of the families of the patients , majority of the families and
the nurse administrators have consented that virtual education can open up the oceans of
opportunities for the home based nurses, although many patient's family are of the misconcept
that the engagement of these nurses would affect the time of care.
With reference to this project, an accelerating intervention can surely affect the life of both the
caregiver and the patient in a positive way. Fast education to the caregivers can accelerate the
delivery of appropriate care to the patient. Virtual education can help the nurse to get introduced
to evidence based researches that can affect the caregiver to cope up with the physical and
emotional stress, fluctuating personality of the patient and fearful behaviors.
Reflecting on the social and the cultural values, a family might believe in a particular
culture where education of caregivers might not be given that much importance or the caregivers
might not be able to participate in the education program owing to the culture of the family. It is
not that only caregivers are faced by ill treatment or stresses. Elderly dementia patient are often
faced with restraints, which can be detrimental to their health status. Online education to the
caregivers will impart them knowledge about the various behavioral therapies including the
visual aids that can improve the treatment plan of the caregivers (Kim, 2015). Such a project will

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definitely bring about a positive impact on the nurse community at the home and beyond a health
care setting. Virtual education would further help in the interprofessional development of the
nurse. Virtual nursing in nursing helps to improve the clinical reasoning skills among the nurses
(Du et al., 2013).
The evaluation strategy for this project can be interview questionnaires that should
provide an insight to the extent of success of this project. The administrator has to identify the
long term outcome of the project. While evaluation it is important to consider the socio economic
condition of the nurses or the family to which they are providing care. The education program
has got the potential to lower the stress among the care givers catering to less sick call. Less sick
calls will give the facility for cost saving. The educational program will ultimately lead to an
increased quality of care for the patients with dementia.

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References
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