Level 3 Dementia Care – Advanced Practice

This advanced non-regulated Level 3 CPD course is designed for experienced adult social care practitioners supporting people living with dementia in England. Across 15 structured Modules, learners strengthen person-centred decision-making, communication, observation and escalation, care planning, positive risk, safeguarding, physical-health awareness, family partnership, transitions, end-of-life support and reflective practice. The course emphasises practical application while keeping care workers within role, competence and agreed ways of working.

👥 What you need

This course is intended for experienced adult social care staff. Learners should already understand core induction-level person-centred care, safeguarding, consent, confidentiality, health and safety, record keeping and workplace escalation procedures.

⏱ Learning time

Allow approximately 5 hours 2 minutes in total, including teaching videos, guided self-study, practical activities and the final assessment.

📘 Module 1 — Understanding Dementia and Person-Centred Advanced Practice

Dementia as a broad term for progressive cognitive conditions; individual variation; personhood, strengths and retained abilities; dignity, choice and wellbeing; co-production; avoiding diagnostic labels as a substitute for knowing the person; recognising the care worker’s role within agreed plans and organisational policies.

By the end of this module, learners will be able to:

✓ Evaluate how dementia can affect cognition, function, identity and everyday wellbeing without reducing the person to a diagnosis.
✓ Apply person-centred and rights-based principles to routine support decisions.
✓ Identify task-led routines that can be redesigned around choice, dignity and individual outcomes.

Workplace application: Daily routine audit: compare a task-led morning routine with a person-centred alternative that protects choice, privacy and meaningful control.

📘 Module 2 — Types, Progression and Common Presentations

Common dementia presentations; progressive and fluctuating change; establishing an individual baseline; cognitive, functional, behavioural and physical changes; diagnostic overshadowing; sudden confusion and deterioration as reasons for prompt escalation rather than automatic attribution to dementia.

By the end of this module, learners will be able to:

✓ Compare common dementia presentations and explain why progression is not identical for every person.
✓ Track changes against an individual baseline rather than assuming every change is “the dementia”.
✓ Escalate sudden or significant deterioration for appropriate health review.

Workplace application: Change-over-time scenario: identify which changes fit the person’s established baseline and which require same-day or urgent escalation under local policy.

📘 Module 3 — Communication, Identity, Life Story and Meaningful Engagement

Communication preferences; processing time; non-verbal cues; tone, pace and environment; accessible information; hearing/vision considerations; life-story work; culturally relevant identity; meaningful occupation and social connection; consent and privacy when gathering biographical information.

By the end of this module, learners will be able to:

✓ Adapt verbal, non-verbal and environmental communication to the person’s needs and preferences.
✓ Use life-story and identity information respectfully to support meaningful engagement.
✓ Recognise when communication or sensory needs require specialist assessment, advocacy or additional support.

Workplace application: Create a concise communication and identity passport for a fictional person, including preferred approaches, distress cues and meaningful conversation prompts.

📘 Module 4 — Mental Capacity, Consent and Supported Decision-Making

Presumption of capacity; practicable support; unwise decisions; best interests; least restrictive action; decision- and time-specific capacity; accessible explanations; checking understanding; supported choices; daily consent; recording observations; role-appropriate escalation for complex legal, financial, medical or high-risk decisions.

By the end of this module, learners will be able to:

✓ Apply the five statutory Mental Capacity Act principles to day-to-day support.
✓ Use decision-specific support strategies before concluding that a person may be unable to make a particular decision.
✓ Record and escalate complex capacity or best-interests issues within role and organisational procedures.

Workplace application: Supported-decision checklist: plan how to help a person choose between two personal-care options at a time when their cognition fluctuates.

📘 Module 5 — Assessment, Care Planning and Review

Care and support planning; co-production; strengths, preferences, risks and support networks; outcome-focused goals; review triggers; evidence from day-to-day observations; avoiding static plans; involving the person, family/representatives and professionals as appropriate.

By the end of this module, learners will be able to:

✓ Contribute meaningful observations and person-defined outcomes to assessment and care planning.
✓ Use strengths-based information to support independence and ordinary life.
✓ Review whether care-plan actions continue to reflect current needs, preferences and outcomes.

Workplace application: Care-plan audit: rewrite three task-led statements into person-centred outcome statements and identify what evidence should be reviewed.

📘 Module 6 — Distress, Behavioural and Psychological Symptoms, and Unmet Need

Distress and changed behaviour; physical discomfort, delirium, infection, communication barriers, sensory overload, boredom, fear and unmet emotional needs; antecedent-behaviour-consequence style observation; de-escalation; environmental adaptation; avoiding unnecessary restrictive or medication-led responses; clear escalation when risk is immediate.

By the end of this module, learners will be able to:

✓ Interpret distress as communication requiring assessment of possible causes.
✓ Use structured observation to identify patterns, triggers and unmet needs.
✓ Prioritise psychosocial and environmental responses and escalate risks appropriately.

Workplace application: Complete a five-part observation log for a fictional episode of afternoon distress and propose proportionate non-restrictive responses.

📘 Module 7 — Positive Risk, Mobility, Falls and Safer Environments

Positive risk-taking; proportionate controls; mobility and independence; falls history; footwear, lighting, contrast, clutter, orientation and routine; assistive equipment only when assessed/authorised; multidisciplinary review; recording and escalation after falls or significant mobility change.

By the end of this module, learners will be able to:

✓ Balance foreseeable risk with autonomy, mobility and quality of life.
✓ Identify environmental and individual factors that can increase falls risk.
✓ Contribute to least-restrictive risk-management plans and appropriate referrals.

Workplace application: Develop a positive-risk support plan for a person who wants to walk independently despite increased falls risk.

📘 Module 8 — Nutrition, Hydration, Swallowing and Oral Health

Food and fluid preferences; mealtime environment; independence and prompting; monitoring intake where required; weight and nutrition concerns; oral health and comfort; coughing, choking, wet/gurgly voice or recurrent chest symptoms as escalation cues; following SALT/dietetic/clinical plans exactly; never independently prescribing textures or thickener changes.

By the end of this module, learners will be able to:

✓ Identify signs of poor intake, dehydration, oral discomfort and possible swallowing difficulty.
✓ Support eating and drinking in a dignified, person-centred way within the current care plan.
✓ Escalate swallowing or nutritional concerns and follow professionally prescribed plans without independently changing them.

Workplace application: Mealtime observation exercise: distinguish routine support actions from signs requiring prompt referral or clinical review.

📘 Module 9 — Medicines, Pain, Delirium and Physical Health

Delirium awareness; acute change; pain behaviours; structured observational pain assessment in line with local policy; medicine effects and side-effect observations; adherence to medication procedures; no diagnosis/prescribing or independent medication changes; timely reporting to registered clinicians or primary care as required.

By the end of this module, learners will be able to:

✓ Differentiate gradual dementia change from sudden physical or cognitive deterioration that may indicate delirium or illness.
✓ Use structured observation to recognise possible pain in a person who may not communicate it verbally.
✓ Record and escalate medicine, pain and physical-health concerns within role boundaries.

Workplace application: SBAR-style escalation preparation: compile objective observations for a fictional resident with sudden drowsiness, reduced intake and new distress.

📘 Module 10 — Sleep, Continence, Personal Care and Daily Living

Personal-care consent; privacy; preferred routines; continence support; recognising potential physical causes requiring review; non-drug sleep strategies; lighting, noise and routine; enabling rather than automatically doing tasks for the person; documenting changes and preferences.

By the end of this module, learners will be able to:

✓ Plan intimate care that protects dignity, privacy, consent and independence.
✓ Explore modifiable contributors to sleep and continence difficulties before assuming they are inevitable features of dementia.
✓ Use reablement approaches to maintain daily-living skills where safe and appropriate.

Workplace application: Night-support plan: redesign a restrictive night routine for a person who wakes, walks and becomes disorientated.

📘 Module 11 — Safeguarding, Restrictive Practice and Least Restriction

Safeguarding duties; indicators of abuse/neglect; self-neglect; proportionality; physical, environmental and chemical restriction; MCA least-restrictive principle; consent; organisational safeguarding procedures; current deprivation-of-liberty processes; care workers report and contribute evidence but do not authorise legal deprivation themselves.

By the end of this module, learners will be able to:

✓ Recognise abuse, neglect, self-neglect and unsafe or informal restrictions.
✓ Apply safeguarding reporting routes and Making Safeguarding Personal principles within organisational procedures.
✓ Identify less restrictive alternatives and escalate deprivation-of-liberty concerns through the correct route.

Workplace application: Least-restrictive audit: review a fictional environment where furniture and door controls unintentionally limit freedom of movement.

📘 Module 12 — Families, Carers, Advocacy and Partnership Working

Carer involvement and separate needs; whole-family impact; confidentiality; consent to share information; carers’ assessments; advocacy; professional neutrality during family disagreement; documenting relevant information; partnership with social work, primary care, community and specialist services.

By the end of this module, learners will be able to:

✓ Work constructively with families and unpaid carers while keeping the person’s rights and wishes central.
✓ Recognise carer strain and routes to carers’ assessment, support and respite.
✓ Use advocacy and multidisciplinary partnership when communication, conflict or representation needs require it.

Workplace application: Carer-support mapping exercise for a daughter balancing full-time work with increasing care demands.

📘 Module 13 — Transitions, Hospital Admission and Continuity of Care

Transition stress; hospital-associated confusion and delirium risk; communication passports; current medicines and care-plan information; sensory and communication needs; discharge coordination; continuity when moving between local authority areas under Care Act statutory guidance; avoiding unsupported legal section-number claims.

By the end of this module, learners will be able to:

✓ Identify risks associated with admission, discharge and moving between care settings.
✓ Prepare person-centred transfer information that preserves routines, communication and risk-management information.
✓ Apply continuity-of-care principles and escalate gaps that could lead to unsafe interruption of support.

Workplace application: Hospital transfer passport: identify the essential information that should accompany a person with dementia during an unplanned admission.

📘 Module 14 — Palliative and End-of-Life Dementia Care

Palliative approach; comfort and dignity; advance care planning; preferences and communication; pain and distress observation; mouth care; eating/drinking support; family support; recognising dying; escalation to clinical teams; care workers do not make unilateral DNACPR, prescribing or treatment-withdrawal decisions.

By the end of this module, learners will be able to:

✓ Recognise dementia as a life-limiting condition and contribute to person-centred palliative care.
✓ Support advance care planning conversations within role and refer clinical/legal decisions appropriately.
✓ Recognise and report comfort, pain, mouth-care, hydration and family-support needs during end-of-life care.

Workplace application: Conversation-preparation exercise: identify sensitive prompts and boundaries when a person or family raises future-care preferences.

📘 Module 15 — Leadership, Supervision, Quality Improvement and Reflective Practice

Role modelling; peer support; supervision within role; reflective questions; learning from incidents and complaints; identifying repeated care-plan or communication failures; small-cycle improvement actions; evidence and follow-up; staff wellbeing and boundaries; formal HR/clinical/governance functions remain with authorised roles.

By the end of this module, learners will be able to:

✓ Model person-centred dementia practice and give constructive feedback within role.
✓ Use structured reflection to identify learning and prevent practice drift.
✓ Contribute to small, measurable quality-improvement actions and know when formal management decisions require escalation.

Workplace application: Reflective supervision exercise: analyse a complex care event, identify learning, agree one measurable improvement action and set a review point.