Nine certified home health aides (CHHAs) from Penn Medicine Princeton HomeCare recently earned Certified Dementia Practitioner® (CDP) credentials, signifying their commitment to meeting standards of excellence in caring for patients with dementia.
The nine CHHAs — Avis Doyley, Coral Haynes-Tucker, Serena Walker, Sarah Martin-Vincent, Abdul Davies, Joseph Victor, Grace Kaley, Nebu Wilson, and Betty Adolphe — provide in-home, direct patient care for Princeton Caregivers, the private duty nursing agency of Princeton HomeCare.
The agency offers extended care, which is any service provided two hours or more per day to complement traditional home care, skilled nursing, homemaker or home health aide programs. The agency cares for a growing number of patients with Alzheimer’s or other forms of dementia, said Connie Oldham, executive director of Princeton HomeCare.
“We identified a need for this type of specialized training because we saw that, as the population continues to age, more and more individuals are aging at home with caregivers,” Oldham said. “Patients with dementia can be very difficult for caregivers to manage. The caregivers hire our aides to assist, and we felt it was important to ensure that our aides receive advanced training in understanding and caring for people with dementia.”
The nine aides received their CDP credentials from the National Council of Certified Dementia Practitioners, an organization committed to promoting comprehensive dementia education for healthcare professionals and caregivers.
Training was delivered on-site at Princeton Health facilities through the Rutgers University School of Management and Labor Relations.
Healthcare professionals from other parts of Princeton HomeCare will undergo specialized training for dementia care in the near future, Oldham said.
Princeton HomeCare — part of Penn Medicine at Home — provides comprehensive in-home nursing and rehabilitation, hospice care and support services to patients in four New Jersey counties: Mercer, Middlesex, Hunterdon and Somerset. The Princeton Caregivers agency also serves patients in Monmouth and Burlington counties.