Last June I wrote a blog post about changing the world through my PhD. I still believe my research is an important step to making change to wider practice, and to getting a job in which I can influence positive change.
But changing the world doesn’t have to be such large scale! We can change another person’s world just by treating them as a person!
So how can we treat our patients more like people? We start by looking beyond the task we’re performing to the person we are with.
A great opportunity came up for me when I was invited to present at the Agents for Nutrition and Tissue Viability Study day (ANTS) at the Royal Bournemouth Hospital last Tuesday. If you read my previous blog post Understanding Eating in Dementia – more than just memory loss, you will get a brief overview of what I talked about!
Aside from my own presentation, however, it was the rest of the day that I particularly enjoyed. I loved hearing how nutrition is so relevant to such a range of topics – Acute Kidney Injury, Diabetes, Stroke, Tissue Viability – and developing my knowledge about PEG feeding and Nasogastric tubes!
Long ago… back in the year 2015… I completed the University of Tasmania’s ‘Understanding Dementia Massive Open Online Course (MOOC)’ – something I would highly recommend to anyone from any walk of life who has an interest in dementia or dementia care.
Particularly impressed by Dr Jane Tolman’s presentation on the different domains of dementia, I felt it was something everyone should be familiar with!