Khare-vokkaliga is one of the small ethnic communities inhabiting four village hamlets in Uttara Kannada district of Karnataka, which is located in the heart of the Western Ghats in India. They used traditional medicines for the treatment of diseases and disorders that affected the community. A survey of ethnomedicinal practices followed by the community was conducted during 2003-04 which indicated that Khare-vokkaliga used 57 plant species of 56 genera and 38 families for the treatment of 39 diseases and disorders in human beings. Among them, 20 species of 19 genera of 16 families are being used to treat 6 infectious diseases and 44 species of 43 genera of 33 families are used to treat 33 non-infectious diseases. The high informant consensus factor (ICF=1.0) was assigned to jaundice category followed by moderate ICF (0.37) to the poisonous bite category and lowest (ICF=0.00) to the treatment of skin and eye related problems. This study reports 11 new claims for the treatment of human diseases and disorders.
With the current push towards using fewer antipsychotics and more non-pharmacological interventions in long-term care, it has become increasingly important for knowledge and best-practice sharing across the province. The “Good Ideas” project began in 2001 in the context of my work as a Royal Ottawa geriatric psychiatry behavioural support outreach nurse to long-term-care facilities in Ottawa. A toolkit was begun as various ideas and tools were found to be useful in the management of behavioural challenges in the care of long term care residents. These non-pharmacological tools can have a significant impact on the management of behavioural challenges. Some were discovered via “out-of-the-box” thinking, some as a result of exploring possibilities on the Web, others were shared with me by colleagues in various roles and settings. I have worked in geriatric psychiatry in various capacities as a nurse at The Royal Ottawa Health Care Group since 1986, and have had the opportunity to accumulate several “good ideas” over time. I found myself carrying various articles, pamphlets, booklets, photos in my workbag and noticed I was being contacted more frequently over time on how to obtain certain items. When these non-pharmacological approaches were implemented, and successful, a common response would be: “what a good idea!” Thus, the name given to the project came to be. Good Ideas has grown over the years as the information has been shared with outreach team members and utilized in their own practice. All contacts are encouraged to share any new “good ideas” they encounter so those too can be added. Originally a hardcopy handout with a list and the resources to outsource items was created and distributed. This evolved into a PowerPoint presentation explaining the usefulness of each tool in specific target behaviours and how to obtain the tool, as well as photos. Later a poster was made and a second version was produced more recently. Currently the project is in the process of being translated to French for our bilingual Ottawa area. The project has circulated among my teammates to be used in education sessions in their long-term-care facilities or as an adjunct to larger full day education sessions on the topic of dementia care. A large colorful hatbox also contains some sample items to add to the hard copies. Good Ideas has been presented at the Regional Geriatric Program Annual Meeting poster presentation Oct 12, 2013, with very positive feedback from participants. Good Ideas is a project in perpetuity, with no stop date planned. It is my hope it will continue to grow long after my retirement date. It promotes the concept of creative thinking about behavioural challenges in dementia care, while supporting that pharmacological intervention should most often be as a last resort.
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