Nicoletta Cerini
N.Cerini - Un viaggio nell鈥檃ffascinante e complesso mondo degli anziani
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Nicoletta Cerini I work at the Piccola Casa della Divina Provvidenza "Cottolengo" as a Nurse and RAI (Resident Assessment Instrument) Manager; relating daily with a complex and increasingly growing population such as the elderly, I decided to do the DAS Gerontology and Geriatrics to acquire more skills to be transferred within the work team.
Where does he work and what does he do?
鈥嬧赌�I work at the Little House of Divine Providence "Cottolengo" in Gordevio, a small village in the Maggia Valley. Within the facility I work as a nurse and hold the position of RAI Manager.
What motivated you to attend DAS Gerontology and Geriatrics?
鈥嬧赌�鈥嬧赌嬧�嬧赌嬧�嬧赌嬧�婭 decided to attend DAS Gerontology and Geriatrics to build my knowledge base so that I could become a health professional with a capital P. Since I graduated, I have always tried to attend refresher/deepening courses to stay in education. Medicine and the way care is delivered are, in fact, constantly evolving, and a nurse has the right and especially the duty to keep up to date. I have always had the opportunity to attend courses of shorter or longer duration, and when the possibility of enrolling in DAS was presented to me, I was obviously enthusiastic. My experience at 精东影业 began with attending the course "Accompanying and Living with Users with Dementia," which, in addition to helping me ask many ethical and clinical questions, aroused in me a desire to delve even more deeply into this vast world that is geriatrics. After graduating from CAS Palliative Care in 2016, I thus decided to enroll in DAS Gerontology and Geriatrics to acquire more skills to be transferred on a daily basis to my professional context characterized by a continuous relationship with users with chronic degenerative diseases such as the elderly.
Why is training that targets a complex population, such as the elderly, important?
鈥嬧赌�鈥嬧赌嬧�嬧赌嬧�嬧赌嬧�婽he reality of recent years is increasingly confronting us with a growing and complex elderly population that we will need to relate to in the coming years. Training in gerontology and geriatrics will therefore become increasingly important. According to the Swiss Health Observatory in 2060 life expectancy will continue to rise, reaching 89 years for men and 93 for women, numbers that have doubled in the last 100 years. This makes us understand how in any clinical area we will be able to find elderly and great elderly who have in addition to all the pathologies "accumulated" over the years, also the chronic ones related to old age.
What are the main skills learned in DAS? How is what you learn in the classroom transferred to your professional context?
鈥嬧赌�Attending DAS allowed me in the first instance to have a 360-degree view of the resident. It is as if I received a new pair of glasses with which to look at the person as such, with his or her history and uniqueness, reconfiguring his or her role, welcoming him or her for what he or she is and accompanying him or her in what he or she will be, giving quality to the final part of his or her life. All this without forgetting the great role of the family and in particular the caregivers. Within the course I learned the importance of interprofessionalism, to develop projects aimed at improving the quality of care, to analyze complex clinical cases to support the team while always keeping ethical principles firm, to use scales for multidimensional assessment aimed not only at objectifying signs and symptoms but also at creating ad hoc and personalized care for each individual person.
I was accompanied in asking myself many questions, but above all to search for answers based on the scientific literature. This course has been a journey, in and out of myself. I represented it as a mountain climb where sometimes you encounter fog that almost prevents you from continuing but then, if you continue and reach the top, the perspective in front of you is so sharp that you can see wonderfully unexpected landscapes. This is DAS Gerontology and Geriatrics: looking, listening and being there.
I think the role within my facility is precisely to accompany colleagues on the difficult path of knowing and caring for the elderly person who is enveloped in a fragile and complex body that still, in some respects, remains mysterious and sometimes little considered; so it is essential to bring the team to look not only at the path you are on but also at everything else around you.
To whom would you recommend, and why, this training course?
鈥嬧赌�I would recommend this path to all social and health professionals because it allows them to broaden their horizons, not stopping at the first evidence, but continuously questioning why certain events occur.