PROGRAM DESCRIPTION

Learn to provide a palliative care approach with LEAP Personal Support Worker. LEAP Personal Support Worker is an online, self-learning course that provides personal support workers and care aides with the essential competencies to provide a palliative care approach.

A palliative care approach aims to improve the quality of life for individuals with a life-limiting illness and their families, by reducing their suffering through early identification, assessment and treatment of pain, understanding their goals of care, and meeting their full range of needs—physical, cultural, psychological, social, and spiritual.

Personal support workers play an essential role in caring for patients with life-limiting illnesses, and their families, as part of an interprofessional health care team.

Course features -:

• Interactive, self-learning online modules completed at your own pace (approximately 8 – 10 hours of work).
• Short quizzes at the end of each module to assess knowledge.
• Built by Canadian palliative care experts.
• Participants will receive a LEAP certificate of completion.

About Course

Pallium Canada is a national leader in providing continuing medical education on palliative care for health care professionals across Canada. Pallium’s Learning Essential Approaches to Palliative Care (LEAP) courseware provides practical, interprofessional, and evidence-based training and tools in the palliative care approach across multiple health care settings. Over the past twenty years, Pallium’s courses have equipped tens of thousands of primary- and generalist-level health care professionals with core competencies in palliative care.

Pallium believes that palliative care is not just the responsibility of palliative care specialists but is everyone’s business and is needed across all settings of health care. Pallium’s LEAP courseware enhances health care professional knowledge, skills, and practice in providing high-quality palliative care. Health care professionals benefit from increased comfort and confidence in providing high-quality palliative care to patients when and where needed.

Topics covered include

• Taking Ownership
• Advance Care Planning
• Goals of Care and Decision-Making
• Pain – Introduction to Pain
• Pain – Observation and Screening
• Pain – Understanding Pain Medication
• Pain – Understanding Pain Management
• Delirium Screening and Management
• Depression, Anxiety, and Grief
• Dyspnea
• Hydration and Nutrition
• Gastrointestinal Symptoms
• Suffering, Spiritual Care, and Maintaining Hope
• Last Days and Hours
• Communication

Career Opportunities

Upon completion of LEAP Personal Support Worker, learners should be able to:

• Identify individuals who could benefit from a palliative care approach
• Recognize the meaning of key terms related to Advance Care Planning
• Identify pain types and causes of pain
• Recognize the role that personal support workers/care aides/health care assistants play in helping the care team select medication
• Recognize the impact that delirium has on patients and families
• Recognize the difference between individuals experiencing normal grief, and those at risk of more complicated grief
• Recall how to observe for, and report when an individual is affected by dyspnea
• Identify the ‘Dignity Conserving Care’ approach to support individuals and maintain hopefulness
• Identify advocacy communication skills that can be used to advocate for the individual you care for to other members of the health care team
• Recall how to prepare individuals and families for the last days and hours