Padala Kalpana P, Mendiratta Priya, Orr L Casey, Dean Kim T, Boozer Eugenia M, Lensing Shelly Y, Wei Jeanne Y, Sullivan Dennis H, Padala Prasad R
is Associate Director for Clinical Research; and are Health Science Specialists; is a Neuropsychology Postdoctoral Fellow; is a Biostatistician; is Director; and is Associate Director for Clinical Programs; all at the Geriatric Research Education, and Clinical Center at Central Arkansas Veterans Healthcare System in Little Rock. , Dennis Sullivan, and Prasad Padala are Professors; is Professor and Chair; and Kalpana Padala is Associate Professor; all in the Departments of Geriatrics and Psychiatry; Shelly Lensing is a Biostatistician; all at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock.
Fed Pract. 2020 Oct;37(10):466-471. doi: 10.12788/fp.0052.
Many general practitioners consider dementia care beyond their clinical domain and feel that dementia assessment and treatment should be addressed by specialists, such as geriatricians, geriatric psychiatrists, or neurologists. An urgent need exists to educate all medical trainees in dementia care, regardless of their specialization interests.
We developed a multicomponent, experiential, brief curriculum using team-based learning to expose senior medical students who rotated through the US Department of Veterans Affairs Memory Disorders Clinic at the Central Arkansas Veterans Healthcare System in Little Rock to an interdisciplinary assessment of dementia. The curriculum included didactics, clinical experience, and team-based learning. In pre- and postevaluation, students rated their perception of the role of interdisciplinary team members in assessing and managing dementia, their personal abilities to assess cognition, behavioral problems, caregiver burden, and their perception of the impact of behavioral problems on dementia care.
Dementia knowledge gaps were prevalent in this cohort of senior medical students. Providing interdisciplinary geriatric educational experience improved students perception of their ability to assess for dementia and their recognition of the roles of interdisciplinary team members. Plans are in place to continue and expand the program to other complex geriatric syndromes.
许多全科医生认为痴呆症护理超出了他们的临床领域，觉得痴呆症评估和治疗应由老年病科医生、老年精神科医生或神经科医生等专科医生来处理。迫切需要对所有医学实习生进行痴呆症护理方面的教育，无论他们的专业兴趣如何。
我们开发了一个多组成部分、体验式、简短的课程，采用基于团队的学习方法，让在小石城的阿肯色州中部退伍军人医疗保健系统的美国退伍军人事务部记忆障碍诊所轮转的高年级医学生接触痴呆症的跨学科评估。该课程包括讲授、临床经验和基于团队的学习。在评估前后，学生们对跨学科团队成员在评估和管理痴呆症中的作用、他们个人评估认知、行为问题、照顾者负担的能力以及他们对行为问题对痴呆症护理影响的看法进行了评分。
在这组高年级医学生中，痴呆症知识差距普遍存在。提供跨学科老年医学教育经验提高了学生对其评估痴呆症能力的认知以及他们对跨学科团队成员角色的认识。目前已制定计划，将该项目继续并扩展到其他复杂的老年综合征。
