Online Continuing Education Courses

Aging, Dementia and Disorders of Cognition

•  Define the basic terminology and discuss the prevalence of cognitive disturbances seen in older persons.
• Describe normative changes in brain function with normal aging and their relevance to the diagnoses of delirium and dementias.
• Discuss how symptoms are altered with normal aging for an individual.
•  Describe normal sensory changes with aging and how they alter a person’s overall ability to adapt to stress.
• Describe how, and for what type of patient, to use the Mini-Mental State Examination as a part of the physical or occupational therapy examination.
• Describe common sensory changes with dementia and implications for adapting PT or OT evaluation and intervention.
• Discuss common changes in learning styles with aging and implications for adaptingPT or OTintervention to enhance patients’ ability to perform at their highest functional level.
• Describe how environmental design and ergonomics can enhance patient performance in activities of daily living and instrumental activities of daily living.
• Describe a strategy to evaluate a patient’s emotional capacity to participate in a learning task and its clinical relevance to both OT and PT outcomes.
• Describe criteria for delirium and reversible dementia and sample strategies for modifying evaluation and treatment procedures.
• Discuss symptoms and disease progression in irreversible dementia.
• Discuss the therapist’s role on the treatment team in educating key caregivers and support personnel and sample training strategies.
• Discuss treatment skills that are helpful in working with persons who have irreversible dementia.
• Describe research activities and new findings that affect physical evaluation and treatment of the patient with dementia or delirium.