DEMENTIA SERVICES FEATURE
Organising groups involved individual risk assessments and booking an appropriate meeting room in a venue , usually on the trust ’ s premises . The meeting room needed to be available for seven to eight consecutive weeks at the same start time . Transport also needed to be considered for those unable to access the location independently .
Over several years the groups have proven to be a good way to provide educational information in a relaxed atmosphere and enabled clients to meet others in a similar situation to themselves , which was beneficial for sharing experiences .
In March 2020 , when the COVID-19 pandemic hit the UK and the country went into lockdown , the WAD service was initially suspended and most of the staff were redeployed elsewhere in the trust . We were unable to continue with our groups and the service was reduced to three staff , who maintained a dialogue with the WAD patients to support their wellbeing with regular telephone contact .
It became apparent that there would be no short-term end to the pandemic and therefore it could be some time before we would be able to hold face-to-face groups again . For the service to continue we would need to adapt the way our groups were delivered .
As a part-time occupational therapist , I was initially redeployed to support another team , then later it was decided that I would return to the WAD team and evaluate the possibility of an online approach to deliver our service , allowing us to resume our support for clients . We were looking towards having something ready by October 2020 .
Brainstorming sessions The trust had already started to use Microsoft Teams as a platform for staff working at home to stay connected and we had seen that we were able to share our presentations with colleagues . At our multidisciplinary team meeting we discussed whether this was something we could do with our clients .
We then obtained initial approval from management that Microsoft Teams was suitable for use with clients .
The WAD team became excited that we may be able to find a way to still deliver our groups . Brainstorming , we considered what we felt the positives and negatives of online groups would be and soon realised that some aspects may in fact make the groups easier .
We considered flexibility , time management , costs and the environment .
Flexibility : We could organise our groups at any time of the day to suit our clients ’ needs . Geographically , we would be able to run a group for patients from the North and South together as there would be no issue with the distance to travel or managing client transport arrangements .
Time management : Organisation time would be reduced as there would be no need to arrange client or staff travel to venues . No time would be needed to set up the room before and wait for client transport after the group .
The client would also have to commit to far less time themselves , as once they turned off their computer at the end of the session , there would be nothing more to do . This would be of benefit to those struggling with fatigue and other physical health problems .
Costs : Costs would be reduced as there would be no room , travel or parking charges to consider .
Environment : Potentially our clients would have the advantage of a more comfortable environment – their own home .
The main negatives we could see were that the group would be restricted to internet users only and there could be technical issues out of our control .
We were mindful that it might be difficult to discuss sensitive topics online and we wondered how the session would flow without getting to know the group members over a cup of tea and with ‘ icebreakers ’ to generate conversation ?
What would we do ? We decided that the groups would need to be presented in a way that would generate conversation , so we would pose questions to discuss , using our experience of what other people have said previously at face-to-face groups to encourage conversation .
Using our clinical skills , we thought having a simple presentation for the discussion topic would work for our patients , using bullet points and simple images to convey the educational content .
Evaluating the materials used for the three groups , there was a cross-over of content as the patients were not necessarily referred to all three groups , so we decided that we would be able to combine the content into one online group with a different topic each week .
The main points we wanted to get across to support managing changes with a diagnosis of dementia were : memory strategies ; healthy living ; communication ; information about our peer support service ; environment and risk ; anxiety ; and planning ahead .
From these topics I was tasked with producing a presentation for each in a format that would be easy for our clients and their carer to understand and that would generate discussion .
After a trawl through the group information we had available and some research to ensure the work was evidence based , I commenced work on the presentations , keen to make them visually appealing , but mindful that fancy animations and graphics would not be appropriate for our client group .
The team ’ s senior occupational therapist returned from redeployment part-time to the WAD team , so we were able to share some of the development work , and by the end of September we had the first versions of each presentation ready for review by the multidisciplinary team .
It was arranged for us to go through each presentation at our weekly multidisciplinary team Microsoft Teams meeting . I remember feeling quite nervous wondering if the team would be happy with what we had worked on , but with a few amendments the presentations were completed two weeks later .
The team decided we would offer a pilot group to some clients who had attended a face-to-face group back in March , which had
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