New Year, New Series

As a new start to the year, I promised myself to start a series about what I learned while writing my doctoral dissertation. My dissertation focused on the concept of personalized learning or the idea of how to tailor and customize the learning path for each learner. I then took this concept and applied it to the audience of care partners (i.e., caregivers) for people living with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias. For my first post, I wanted to highlight the idea of understanding dementia. Dementia isn’t just memory loss; it’s a range of symptoms affecting thinking and behavior. Knowing the basics can guide better care. In my studies, I was fortunate to find the Understanding Dementia course provided by the University of Tasmania. This course is online and free to anyone. They have a lot of great content to help people understand dementia and how it is an umbrella term for multiple types of cognitive disorders (i.e., Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, frontotemporal lobe disorder (FTD), Lewy body disease (LBD)). In fact, there are over 50 cognitive disorders that fall under the term dementia. I encourage you to check it out and sign up: https://mooc.utas.edu.au/course/20281

P.S. MOOC stands for Massive Open Online Course, meaning it is designed for thousands of people to sign up for, and it is free.

Medical disclaimer: This article is for educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and does not replace care from your clinician. If you have a medical concern, contact your healthcare professional. If this is an emergency, call 911 (or your local emergency number).