Dementia care is a critical area of need in the community and institutional settings, with estimated one-third of seniors younger than 80 years of age with dementia living in institutional settings and this proportion increases to 42% for those 80 years and older in Canada. It is of critical importance to promote excellence and best practices in dementia care by preparing for well-trained dementia workforce through capacity building.

This project developed a dementia care micro-credential education to enable competency development of new graduates and upskilling of workers through simulation-based learning. This micro-credential program leveraged interdisciplinary partnership, to develop nine core modules related to best practices in dementia care, facilitated with a Gamified Educational Network (GEN). GEN is an evidence-based learning management platform that provides learners with a simulated and immersive experience to engage them in a virtual learning environment that allows for rich experiential interaction with other users and its content.

Face and content validity was established by an inter-professional committee including geriatric psychiatry, nursing, social work, occupational therapy, behavioral therapy, knowledge mobilization and simulation education experts. Next phase will begin to establish construct validity. It is expected that GEN will have a positive impact on increasing learner’s motivation and engagement in the educational tasks, as well as improving learner’s competencies and outcomes through its multi-modal approaches, including gamification (usage of game-based elements in a non-game context to engage learners and promote learning), active observational practice, independent hands-on practice, case-based discussion, peer-to-peer assessment, expert facilitated feedback, skills debriefing and reflective practice.

This micro-credential program will provide an enhanced dementia care curriculum for building capacity of existing workers, and those entering into the workforce to promote a dementia-friendly environment for older adults.