Government reports have stressed the importance of community-based interventions in addressing health inequalities. This article discusses the pivotal role played by a health visitor and school nurse team in identifying the health needs of a local community and working in partnership with local people, key community groups, health and youth workers to address these specific needs. A health needs assessment highlighted the need for a parenting programme to support parents in managing young children's behaviour, a forum for teenagers to socialize and access pertinent health information and health days to raise public awareness of key community health issues. To date the parenting programme and the youth club have been implemented. Evaluation has considered how accessible, appropriate, efficient and effective they have been and the knowledge and skills gained by participants. This community development demonstrates how health promotion works through effective community action.
MaternityPEARLS is the first validated perineal trauma management e-learning package. It provides a level of improvement in skill and knowledge comparable to traditional methods of training. However, as an e-learning system, it has the advantage of ensuring the delivery of a standardised, continuously updated curriculum that has global accessibility.
The current article outlines the nature of visuoperceptual deficits in Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) and its ‘atypical’ variants. Evidence to highlight that visual and visuoperceptual difficulties are common in dementias driven by Alzheimer’s-based pathology will be discussed. Following this, the ways in which early identification of visual and lower-level visuoperceptual symptoms of dementia may be facilitated within primary care optical health settings will be considered. It is hoped that this may inspire work to support opticians and optometrists to identify where timely signposting to dementia services may be beneficial for people with suspected dementia who are experiencing visuoperceptual deficits. This is particularly important given that visual and visuoperceptual deficits can be early signs of dementia and often have a significant impact on activities of daily living (e.g. dressing, increased falls risk, accidents whilst driving, difficulties navigating familiar environments; Tippett et al., 2019). An illustrative case example is provided, outlining how timely detection of suspected dementia could have enabled early provision of appropriate treatment and support to enhance quality of life (e.g. medication for symptom management, provision of cognitive strategies and functional aids; Armstrong & Kergoat, 2015).
Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) is a common outcome following assessment of suspected dementia. However, it is unclear whether service-users perceive that being made aware is beneficial. The term itself is nebulous in terms of prognostic certainty and its utility for guiding interventions. This article summarises the systematic review conducted by Blatchford and Cook (2020) exploring research focused on service-users experiences of receiving the outcome of MCI and the impact of this upon them and their care partners. Service-user and care partner perspectives were shaped by the quality of information and support provided, and several factors shaped their experiences of being informed, including: personal perceptions and experiences, coping styles and living circumstance. The results suggested that clear information and quality support, tailored to service-user needs may improve the utility of the MCI outcome for service-users. The summary concludes by providing suggestions for enhancing service provision.
Background
Birth related perineal trauma can have a major impact on women’s health. The correct assessment and repair of perineal injuries are procedures that require knowledge and skill. Currently, there is no agreement as to what constitutes an effective training programme. We produced and tested an interactive distance learning multi-professional training package called ePEARLS. This was developed as a tool for the delivery and assessment of perineal repair training in line with UK evidence based practise.
Methods
The main aim of this project was to develop, refine and assess ePEARLS as a tool for the assimilation of knowledge and skill to clinicians involved in Intrapartum care. Using pre and post-training objective assessments for both knowledge and skill, we compared the effect of delivering training using ePEARLS compared to other training models in three independent multi-professional groups from three different maternity units.
Results
Thirty-eight participants were involved in the study. Improvements in knowledge scores were marginally significant in all three groups. However, more marked improvements in skill scores were noted in response to the different training models.
Conclusion
ePEARLS is the first multi-professional interactive perineal trauma management e-learning package that has been formally tested against other training models. The potential cost effectiveness of this package makes it far superior to other methods of delivering training and maintaining competency.
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