clinical focus
From bed to breakfast
A free online course aims to help night shift staff manage people with dementia.
Belinda Goodenough interviewed by Dallas Bastian
Are you an early bird or a night owl? Knowing the answer is a good starting point for shiftworkers to ensure a person-centred approach to caring for people with dementia at night, says Belinda Goodenough, knowledge translation manager at Dementia Training Australia( DTA).
Sleep matters to everybody, Goodenough says, and while dementia adds a perspective to sleep that people who work at night must be mindful of, there are still individual differences, and person centred-care will try to identify, unpack and work with, rather than against, the night owls.
She says it’ s also important to take into account what’ s best for the people who are caring for the person with dementia.
A new free online course, Bedtime to Breakfast – Caring at Night for People with Dementia, aims to unpack these aspects of shiftwork, walking learners through self-care, facts about sleep and a salutogenic approach to care.
Goodenough, the course’ s developer, says it is mainly for residential aged care workers who are supporting people with dementia at night, but adds there is value for anyone who is looking for strategies for managing life at night.
Aged Care Insite spoke with Goodenough about the ways the night-time context ties into person-centred care and what advice she has for workers to manage their own health and wellbeing.
ACI: Why did you feel it was important to set up a course focused on caring for people at night? BG: Well, the last census of the aged care workforce in 2016 tells us that close to 20 per cent of our staff are working on shifts that cut across that late evening or night-time phase when supporting people with dementia. Now, most of this workforce is in residential ageing, but there’ s also a few in the community care sector, and when we look at the majority of education in the dementia space for our direct care workforce, it’ s rather peculiar that most of it is actually oriented to working the traditional daylight hours.
Perhaps it’ s because the courses are built by teams working nine-to-five jobs, but jokes aside, dementia is a 24 / 7 condition, and people who live with dementia are also living at night with dementia as well. And nights can bring some specific challenges.
Dementia Training Australia is funded by the Australian government to provide a nationally consistent approach to dementia education for the entire workforce that needs it. And this must include folk who do the night shifts. And so part of our contract with the government is to provide a training portal, an online place to get free e-learning, and one course that we’ re adding is specifically to support our night-time workers.
What are some of the self-care tips you hope to share? There was a sleep survey done on the general population in Australia by a team at the University of Adelaide, and it’ s a bit scary because it pretty much tells us that the vast number of Australians, no matter what walk of life or age they are, actually feel that their sleep experiences are not what they want them to be. They’ re not getting enough sleep, and when they are getting sleep it’ s taking too long, they’ re waking too often, or they’ re getting up too early. And we are all aware of specific campaigns like avoiding microsleeps; for example, when you’ re driving.
So it seems most of Australia needs some self-care. And when we add shiftworkers to that mix, we need some special acknowledgement and extra strategies to support that workforce. A well rested and happier workforce is going to be a more satisfied and capable support for people with dementia at nights.
Self-care is not an indulgence, it’ s a necessity. It’ s like that safety talk on aeroplanes: put your own mask on first before helping others. Some of the specific self-care advice we’ ve got for people who do the night shifts is about respecting your own body clock, getting to know your own body clock. Not everyone is built for night shifts. It’ s understanding diet and the best times to eat and snack when working at nights. It’ s about figuring out what works for you when you’ re transitioning to sleep after your shift ends. For example, some folk find it helpful to wear sunglasses with amber lenses or to avoid computer time – blue light before trying to sleep can be even more profound if you’ re trying to sleep during the day, and [ can affect ] your melatonin levels.
And also the whole mindset that goes with working night shifts. If you hate shiftwork, it’ s probably going to be tougher, but there is a mindset that can go with shiftwork that can be part of the self-care package, which is actually celebrating the positives. What a meaningful and manageable life for a person on night shift can
22 agedcareinsite. com. au