Cognitive and/or Mental Health Challenges
Download student handouts: Cognitive and/or Mental Health Challenges handouts [Word doc].
Course Guideline
The main focus of this course (at least 70%) should be on:
- Learning Outcome 1: Describe ways to organize, provide, and evaluate person-centred care and assistance for clients experiencing cognitive challenges.
- Learning Outcome 3: Describe effective approaches to responding to responsive and reactive behaviours.
A maximum of 30% of course hours should be dedicated to:
- Learning Outcome 2: Describe ways to organize, provide, and evaluate person-centred care and assistance for clients experiencing mental health challenges.
Suggested Learning Strategies
Strategies that Focus on Caring
1. Contributing to a Broadened Understanding of Cognitive Challenges
Invite students to imagine what it is like to suffer from a cognitive challenge, particularly dementia. Have students sit comfortably, close their eyes, and take several deep breaths.
Speaking softly, lead students through the following scenario:
Imagine yourself walking alone through a forest. It’s a lovely warm spring day. The sights, sounds, and smells of the forest are refreshing, and you are enjoying your walk.
As the afternoon progresses, you realize you aren’t sure which direction you should take to get back to your friends and family. As you look around, you realize that you are lost.
As you realize your situation, you experience a twinge of fear. You decide to keep walking in hopes of seeing something familiar, but find that the further you go, the more lost you become. Time passes and your fear verges on panic. As evening draws closer, you realize that you may have to spend the night alone in the forest.
Invite students at this point to open their eyes and discuss their bodily experiences, feelings, and thoughts. Invite them to discuss how this is similar to what some individuals with cognitive challenges might experience.
The client with cognitive changes may constantly feel lost. No matter what they do or where they go, they can find nothing that is familiar. What feelings would this person be likely to have? How is this related to some of the behaviours we might see in a person with cognitive challenges?
Invite students to close their eyes once again and visualize themselves back in the forest. Continue the scenario as follows:
You are back in the forest, still feeling lost and fearful. As dusk begins to settle, you notice that there is a strange person who seems to be following or observing you.
Can you see them? They are about 9 metres (30 feet) away. When you attempt to speak to this person, they answer in a language you don’t understand.
Invite students to open their eyes and describe their responses to the stranger. Some questions to encourage discussion:
- What feelings were stimulated?
- How does this relate to how individuals with cognitive challenges might experience the people in their environment (even family members)?
- How mi