Personal Caregiver Skills Online Program

To provide students with the knowledge and skills needed to care for another individual.

Upon completion of the program, students will be able to:

• Describe the healthcare system and the roles of healthcare workers within it
• Identify ethical and legal rules and regulations for healthcare
• Examine oral and written communication skills for speaking with clients, family, medical personnel, and other caregivers using appropriate language and terminology
• Explain standard procedures needed to maintain clean, safe, and healthy environments
• Recognize the standard practices used to assist clients with the activities of daily living, including bathing, dressing, grooming, physical movement, and mental exercises
• Explain how to identify and report changes in others’ physical and mental condition
• Describe the correct way to administer prescribed treatments, therapies, and basic first aid as directed, when appropriate and allowed
• React appropriately to emergency situations
• Maintain accurate records of client care, condition, progress, and change
• Discuss unique practices and procedures involved with caring for special populations

In this course, you’ll develop the necessary skills to ensure your success in the program. You'll learn how you can improve your study skills, so you're able to use a number of tools that will help you to be successful. This course will also introduce you to the healthcare industry in Canada and the business needs that healthcare workers have in that industry.

Objectives:

• Identify skills needed to be a confident and independent online learner
• Describe the Canadian health care industry and the professional roles within it

This course discusses the importance of human interaction, including verbal and nonverbal communication, the communication feedback loop, barriers, cultural competence, and effective communication techniques. Applying communication skills to assist in caring for others will be addressed. Therapeutic communication skills and unique practices involved with caring for special populations will be covered. This course also introduces basic medical definitions and abbreviations, including word analysis, word usage, roots, prefix and suffix, with an emphasis placed on spelling and constructing medical terms. Students will be given an introduction to the positional and directional terms used to describe the human body.

Objectives:

• Identify the components of interpersonal communication
• Explain the skills required for effective oral communication
• List the best practices and prejudices involved in forming effective workplace communication
• Describe the essential elements of therapeutic communication
• Explain the ways that technology can enhance or become a barrier to communication
• Identify skills and strategies used to communicate with clients and families
• Discuss different ways of communicating with clients with behavioral and other disabilities
• Summarize the history of medical terminology and how terms are formed
• Describe the relationship between the structures of the body
• Differentiate the positional and directional terms used to describe anatomical

In this course, you'll learn how law affects healthcare practitioners, the origin of law that affects medical professionals, the basics of the process of litigation and its alternatives, the common-law basis for the confidentiality of healthcare information, and the laws regulating healthcare information collected and maintained by government agencies.

Objectives:

• Interpret civil and criminal laws related to healthcare
• Assess ethical issues healthcare professionals face today
• Analyze confidentiality laws and regulations

This course is designed to train you in providing personal care to patients to meet their physical, psychological, and mental needs. You’ll develop homemaking and organizational skills as well as a working knowledge of IADLs. You’ll learn to apply standard practices and safety procedures. The course demonstrates how to take vital signs. You’ll learn to perform a basic health assessment with concentration on observing patients for condition changes. This course discusses basic infection control and prevention strategies, with emphasis on handwashing and bag technique. You’ll explore how to prevent spread of infection as well as special precautions. The course also demonstrates safety precautions and procedures for maintaining a clean and safe environment for the worker (aide), for patients in the home, at outside locations, and while transporting, along with proper body mechanics.

Objectives:

• Explain the procedures for maintaining a safe and healthy environment for both clients and yourself
• Identify personal care tasks, including the steps involved in bedmaking and elimination care
• Describe specimen collection and assessment procedures and other special procedures needed for client care

Textbook: Mosby’s Textbook for the Home Care Aide

This course provides an overview of various dimensions of aging, including the aging process and how to provide competent care to the aging patient. It explores normal biological aging, attitudes toward aging, myths of aging, and how to monitor and assess for changes in psychosocial and functional status. It teaches how to develop an instructional plan for families to effectively manage physiologic and/or psychosocial changes. It also discusses end of life issues. Finally, it covers how to identify and handle emergency situations.

Objectives:

• Describe human needs and considerations and the documentation required when meeting those needs for clients
• Explain how to care for clients at any stage of life
• Describe types of special client needs, emergency situations, and emergency procedures