Caregivers for seniors must be able to demonstrate many skills in order to deliver quality care, from understanding how to manage and assist the senior with daily activities of living to managing other health care professionals and family members.
Technology now allows quality training skills to be shared with everyone online. Caregiverlist’s 10-hour online caregiver certification program enables senior caregivers to take the courses at their own pace and upon passing, receive certification as a non-medical caregiver. This means the caregiver has learned the professional caregiving skills and can demonstrate competence by passing the exam.
Senior caregiving is very different from caring for a child, as those of us who were former babysitters and then became senior caregivers well know. Children are suppose to obey their parents and their babysitter. Seniors may not be accepting of care and may want to even make sure they disobey their caregiver, especially if they are in denial of their care needs or of memory loss.
Review the caregiving training and learn more about purchasing the course online. You may also apply for a senior caregiving job in your area to gain more experience as a companion caregiver or to work as a Certified Nursing Aide.
Duties of a Caregiver
Learn the basic scope of a caregiver’s job including how to preserve your clients’ safety and integrity, help with mobility and independence, and how to work within the rules and regulations that govern your job.
Communicating with Others
This 2 credit hour course will help you understand how to communicate with impaired clients, individuals with Alzheimer’s or memory loss, agitated people and others in your work.
Observation, Reporting and Recording
As a caregiver your skills of observation, reporting and recording are vital to helping the rest of the care team provide the best care possible to your clients. Sharpen those skills with this class.
Providing Personal Care
Learn to capably assist a client with personal care tasks like bathing, dressing and grooming, as well as oral care, foot care and even how to give a client a gentle massage.
Promoting and Maintaining Good Mobility
Helping clients with mobility includes learning skills to safely assist with transferring, walking, range of motion and more. The goal is to keep your clients moving, while keeping them – and you – safe. This course is worth 2 credit hours.
Elimination and Toileting
This course will help the caregiver understand the entire digestive process and know what to watch for in clients to ensure good bowel and bladder function, as well as good toileting and incontinence care.
Infection Control
Good infection control starts with proper hand washing, but continues through many steps the caregiver can take. Understanding this topic will help you keep your clients – and yourself and others – as healthy as possible.
Environmental Hazards and Safety
In this course you will learn how to help create a safe, comforting environment, and how to keep it free from hazards. Creating and maintaining a safe environment is important for both you and your clients.
Basic First Aid
In this course you will learn basic first aid including, burns and poisons, heat attack and shock, chocking and falls, stoke and wounds, and other sudden emergencies.
- Burns and Poisons
- Heart Attack and Shock
- Choking and Falls
- Stroke and Wounds
- Other Sudden Emergencies
Understanding Elder Abuse
Abuse is more than just physical. It can also be emotional, financial and sexual. Learn how to recognize and report all types of abuse and neglect, as well as how to protect yourself so that you never abuse a client in your care.
Caregiverlist’s Career Center provides information on working as a senior caregiver and additional training tools.
