Dr. Mani Chandran (sitting, extreme left), Senior Consultant in Geriatric Psychiatry, Department of Geriatric Medicine at HMC, and Kusumadewi Suharya (sitting, third right), Regional Director, Asia Pacific at ADI, with participants during the training at
In another attempt to improve the quality of dementia care in the country, a two-week high level skill building workshop for care givers is being conducted in Doha, in line with the Qatar National Dementia Plan.
“The train the trainer workshop is being held as a joint collaboration between Alzheimer’s Disease International (ADI) and Qatar National Dementia Plan team. The training will eventually lead to build a team of National Dementia Trainers,” said Dr. Mani Chandran, Senior Consultant in Geriatric Psychiatry, Department of Geriatric Medicine at Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC).
The Qatar National Dementia Plan (2018-2022) has been implemented in Qatar to improve the quality of dementia care in the country. Dr. Hanadi Al Hamad, Chairperson of Geriatrics and Long Term Care at HMC, and the National Health Strategy Lead for Healthy Aging.
The plan sets out seven action areas addressing sections of dementia care which will have an impact on improving the quality of care, in line with the Qatar National Health Strategy (2018-2022). The action areas focus on making dementia a public health priority by encouraging dementia awareness and support, improving dementia diagnosis, treatment, care and support, promoting risk reduction, developing information systems for dementia, developing support for carers and supporting research and innovation into the disease.
“Developing support for carers is a very important central component of the Qatar national Dementia Plan. It has a wider impact on all the priority action areas and this workshop will help to reach the goals,” said Dr. Chandran talking to media.
A team of 40 participants, include identified staff from different areas of HMC primary areas, looking after people with dementia, geriatrics, acute hospitals settings, psychiatric hospital, healthcare staff who have the passion for dementia care and 10 of faculty members from ongoing in-house training program. These trainees are supposed to train other healthcare professionals and care givers in the future.
“In the next phase trainers to go through the external assessment by the ADI and they will be registered as national dementia trainers. This team of the trainers will take as drivers to lead the training for dementia care givers n in the future,” said Dr Chandran.
The training programme being held at the within the Hamad Medical City has brought in highly skilled specialise master trainers across the globe.
“The post diagnostic part is very important. Once dementia is diagnosed we need to have people who can support them as family healthcare givers and health care givers. This can be done by these people who have excellent background of training,” said Kusumadewi Suharya, Regional Director, Asia Pacific, ADI.
This is a session for training of trainers. These two weeks, dementia care givers will get training for best trainers. From these, best trainers can be deployed to help and support community based activities. These are the drivers who would possibly lead the education journey to be able to empower people once they get diagnosed with dementia.
Dementia describes a set of symptoms that may include disturbance in memory, thinking, orientation, ability to comprehend information, also affecting a person’s language and judgement. In addition, there can be changes in behaviour. These symptoms become severe enough to reduce a person’s ability to perform everyday activities.
According to the ADI, around 50 million people have dementia in the world. In Qatar, more than 4,400 people over 60 years of age may have dementia. This figure is expected to rise ten-fold to more than 41,000 people by 2050 if no cure or improved prevention takes in place, indicate data from the United Nations.
