Category: Research Institute for Aging

Calling all post-secondary education institutions! You can offer your students new skills and knowledge in resident nutrition by incorporating our new Nutrition in Disguise (NiD) Lesson Plan into your curriculum!

The Ontario CLRI at the RIA is excited to introduce the NiD Lesson Plan aimed at educating the next generation of Food Service team members on the health and wellness of residents living in long-term care.

Our Lesson Plan is designed specifically to support instructors in preparing students to excel in bringing delicious, nutrient-dense foods to long-term care homes.

The NiD Lesson Plan has short videos, customizable assignments, and valuable resources to support instructors in teaching students about resident health and wellness.

Bring the NiD Lesson Plan to your class today!

Enhance your team’s knowledge of respecting and promoting resident rights with our new Orientation eLearning course!

The Ontario CLRI at the RIA is pleased to announce a new eLearning Course, Respecting and Promoting Residents Rights in Long-Term Care. Aligned with the Fixing Long-Term Care Act, this course helps team members, volunteers and essential caregivers with knowledge and skills on resident rights.

Throughout this course, learners will explore how to promote and respect resident rights, while creating an environment where residents feel at home, are treated with respect, and have the support they need to thrive. This course is available at no cost and is aligned with MoLTC training requirements.

With this course, learners will immerse themselves in an interactive care setting that incorporates real-life situations shared by residents living in long-term care across Ontario.

Take the course today! 

This eLearning course, part of the Orientation course series, was developed by the Ontario CLRI at the RIA in 2023 with the generous support of Schlegel Villages, in collaboration with Ontario Association for Residents’ Councils (OARC). We would like to thank the people who contributed to the development and review of content for this course including:

• Gale Ramsden, Perley Health
• Jim Gilhuly, Sunnyside Home
• Devora Greenspon, Extendicare Bayview
• Stephanie Ventura, Education and Community Engagement Manager, Ontario Association of Residents’ Councils
• Vanda Koukounakis, VP Support Office Services, Schlegel Villages
• Pam Wiebe, Quality Specialist, Schlegel Villages

When residents turn to your team members for assistance, company, or support, are they equipped to respond knowledgeably?

Boost your Environmental Services team’s proficiency and ability to interact and support residents with our new activity! This open access activity can also be beneficial as a refresher for family members and care team members.

Environmental Services team members, working in maintenance, laundry, and housekeeping, play a crucial role in ensuring LTC homes are clean, safe, and comfortable. While working in areas such as dining rooms, bedrooms, and common areas, they frequently interact with residents living with dementia or other complex, chronic health conditions. Our activity will increase team members’ confidence while navigating resident interaction scenarios in LTC by providing tested strategies and approaches.

Exceptional care starts by making sure every team member has the right skill set and knowledge. Enhance your Environmental Services team’s impact through this FREE activity offered by the Ontario CLRI at RIA!

This interactive activity explores seven resident interaction scenarios team members commonly encounter in a real-world care environment and suggestions on how to respond.

Take this 7-minute activity today! Find the eLearning activity here.

Scenarios and responses in this activity were developed in consultation with team members working in real world care settings. Thank you to Schlegel Villages University Gates and Aramark for their contributions to this eLearning activity.

The Ontario CLRI at RIA is excited to share that the new Nutrition in Disguise (NiD) Recipes and Resources package is available for download, and is available in English and in French!

In this package, you will find different recipe options for texture modification. The recipes available were also approved by residents in a taste-test based on appearance, flavour, texture and likelihood they would eat it again!

This package also includes other nutrition resources to help with scaling and taste- testing that your long-term care home can use.

The COVID-19 pandemic has placed a spotlight on infection prevention and control (IPAC) in Ontario’s long-term care (LTC) homes. In Spring 2021, the Ontario CLRI at the Schlegel-UW Research Institute for Aging (RIA) released an IPAC resource page and eLearning series. Now we have added to the eLearning series with a new course: IPAC While Infection Prevention and Control While Supporting Residents Living with Dementia

“Our eLearning courses are based on situations that team members encounter in their work,” says Audra Thompson-Haile, Interim Director for the Ontario CLRI at the RIA. “This eLearning helps team members and essential care partners transfer IPAC knowledge to the care they provide.”

The new eLearning course focuses on using IPAC best practices while assisting residents living with dementia. It applies a person-centred, strengths-based approach to situations including meeting a resident’s needs while they are in isolation, assisting a resident to stay in their isolation area, administering a nasal swab, and assisting a resident with effective hand-washing.

With the IPAC resource page and eLearning series, learners will be able to apply their IPAC knowledge and skills to specific scenarios in LTC homes and situations encountered in the community.

Here are the eLearning courses that we have available for our IPAC series:

1. Break the Chain of Transmission: IPAC Core Concepts and Practices (prerequisite for the other courses in the IPAC eLearning series) – Also in French!
   • Types of Transmission and the Chain of Transmission
   • Additional Precautions and Routine Practices in Long-term Care
   • Applying Best Practices for Hand Hygiene and PPE
2. IPAC While Supporting Residents at Mealtime – Also in French!
3. IPAC While Travelling To and From an LTC Home – Also in French!
4. IPAC While Administering Medication
5. IPAC While Supporting Residents with Personal Care: Peri-Care, Continence Care and Using the Toilet
6. IPAC While Supporting Residents  with Personal Care: Bathing, Dressing, and Grooming
7. IPAC While Supporting Residents Living with Dementia

Courses 1-6 are also available in French, while course 7 will also soon be released in French.

Visit the IPAC in LTC page.

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The IPAC in LTC courses and training materials have been developed by the Ontario CLRI at the RIA in collaboration with an expert panel of IPAC specialists working in LTC and an advisory panel of LTC team members, essential care partners, and The Ontario Caregiver Organization.

The Orientation eLearning courses, created by the Ontario CLRI at the RIA, provide education for new team members during orientation, and for existing team members during their annual training. These scenario-based learning courses ensure that learners have the knowledge and skills needed to assist the people they support and are in line with Ministry of Long-Term Care guidelines. They were developed using evidence-based best practices and adult education principles, in collaboration with subject matter experts and LTC leaders.

Managing Pain and Distress in Long-Term Care is a self-paced Orientation course on pain management that will equip or refresh long-term care team members on the knowledge and skills required to support residents. Pain and distress often indicate a medical condition that requires assessment, intervention, and treatment.  A person can experience pain and distress in different ways including physically, socially, spiritually and psychologically. Our new course can equip clinical and non-clinical team members with the skills and confidence to recognize signs of pain and distress, and develop and implement pain management care plans.

Click here to access the eLearning course for clinical team members

Click here to access the eLearning course for non-clinical team members

This eLearning course, part of the Orientation course series, was developed by the Ontario CLRI at RIA in 2022 with the generous support of Schlegel Villages. We would like to thank the people who contributed to the development and review of content for this course including:

Trisha Wilson, RSW, Performance Improvement Lead, NW Regional Palliative Care Program, Hogarth Riverview Manor LTC, St Joseph’s Care Group

Gwendolyn Cleveland, RN, BScN, MEd, CHPCN(C), Palliative Pain and Symptom Management Consultant (PPSMC), Community Health Team, Scarborough Centre for Healthy Communities

Tara Moffatt MN, RN, CHPCN, CON, Palliative Pain and Symptom Management Consultant, Nipissing and Parry Sound Districts, VON Canada

Kim Arquette, Clinical Specialist, Schlegel Villages

We’re excited to announce that our Nutrition in Disguise (NiD) team has added 17 new, delicious recipes to our NiD Recipes for Long-Term Care Homes resource, expanding our selection of recipes to 25!

From mouth watering desserts and sweet treats like bran choco chip cookies and orange creamsicles, to warm, hearty dishes like lasagna and soups, there is a nutritious meal here that you and residents in your home will enjoy and love.

These recipes are available at no-cost for families, care partners, food service team members, and others in LTC who assist with menu planning to add to your LTC home’s menu and eating programs. Each recipe is packed with nutrients to support residents’ health. 

Recipes are vetted by a dietitian, designed to be cost-efficient for LTC home budgets, and even resident-approved for taste, flavour, texture and appearance. You can download the recipes in PDF and in an editable Word format for your home’s customization.

Click here to view all of our recipes

Nutrition in Disguise 

The Nutrition in Disguise (NiD) project focuses on creating nutrient-dense recipes by adding healthy ingredients to common foods that LTC residents already enjoy.

Visit our Nutrition in Disguise page for additional resources and to learn more about this project.

Acknowledgments

The Nutrition in Disguise resources are made available through the Ontario CLRI at the Schlegel-UW Research Institute for Aging (RIA). These resources are based on research completed by the RIA, the University of Waterloo and the University of Guelph, in partnership with Schlegel Villages. This research was made possible with the generosity of George Weston Limited and Loblaw Companies Limited.

The Ontario Centres for Learning, Research and Innovation in Long-Term Care (CLRI) at the Schlegel-UW Research Institute for Aging (RIA) has released a new Orientation course on abuse prevention in long-term care: Preventing, Recognizing, and Reporting Abuse and Neglect in Long-Term Care. This course is available at no cost to support new and existing team members in fulfilling Ministry of LTC’s training requirements.

Understanding how to prevent abuse and neglect is a critical skill for LTC team members as they care for residents from a position of power and trust. Equipping team members with this skill and preparing them to recognize and report abuse allows Ontario LTC homes to better protect their residents and uphold their policies. By taking this course, team members will learn, at their own pace, the importance of following protocol in situations of abuse or neglect to ensure the safety of residents.

Visit our eLearning course.