Module 1: Introduction

1.1 Course welcome

Welcome to this course about Prolonged Disorders of Consciousness and working with patients’ families.
Learning outcomes

​By the end of this course you will be able to:

  • reflect on your own and your colleagues’ feelings about working with the families of PDoC patients
  • empathise with a wide range of challenges families confront
  • identify diverse perspectives that people may have about their relatives’ condition and treatment
  • outline some of the potential differences between professional and family perceptions of therapies
  • develop strategies to bridge gaps between professional and family perceptions/expectations
  • outline the legal obligations to consult with those who care for the person or are interested in their welfare
  • list a range of resource available to families needing further support & know how to navigate these to develop your own future practice.

This course will take between 4 to 7 hours

 

Course schedule

The course is structured into short units so you can work in the way that suits you at any time. Some people work through an entire course over one or two days, others prefer to do 20 minutes at a time over several weeks.  If your employer has arranged for your whole team to do the course refer to the schedule they have organised.

Navigating the course materials

The course consists of a number of modules; these are listed in the course navigation bar (often displayed in the top right of your computer screen, or at the bottom of the unit if you are viewing this on a phone). Each module contains several short units of learning, bite-size chunks to allow for flexible study. Most units can be completed in under 30 minutes.

  • You usually won’t be able to actually go to a unit until you’ve pressed the ‘Mark as Completed’ button on the preceding units. This is because the units are designed to be done in order, but if you want to jump around a bit you can always ‘cheat’ by marking units as completed before you’ve actually completed them!
  • Click on the module titles now to reveal the titles of the units and get an impression of the overall course contents.

Optional CPD exercises 

If you are interested in engaging with some of the original academic work which informs this course there are optional CPD portfolio exercises. One exercise focuses on research about how families categories and negotiate caring for an unconscious loved ones (Unit 2.2); another looks at debates about anger and grief (Unit 3.1); the third involves reading academic work led by an allied healthcare professional analysing understandings of therapies for PDoC patients (Unit 4.4).

It is entirely up to you whether or not you want to go beyond the core course learning to do these extra exercises.

Saving a copy of course materials

Some learners like to save a .pdf copy of the core materials, or even print out a hard copy. They use this for their CPD portfolio and to help them keep notes. It also gives them something they can refer back to after finishing the course. On most systems you can save a .pdf by opening the relevant learning unit, then selecting ‘print’ from your top toolbar on your computer, and opting for ‘save as .pdf’.

 

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Continuing Professional Development

Throughout all our course you’ll be invited to complete quizzes, make your own notes on particular questions and carry out some reflective exercises for your learning portfolio. Set yourself up now with a notebook or a folder on your computer to store your reflections as you work through the materials.

Our courses also involve listening to short lectures and films clips, so you’ll need to keep your headphones to hand if you’re planning on doing some study on public transport or in other shared space.

Assessment and certification

Our online courses are designed so they can be completed via self-assessment with quizzes and self-reflection. A certificate of completion is generated automatically and can be downloaded for your CPD portfolio once you’ve ticked off all the units.

Your first activity

Your very first task before you read any further is:

a) Bookmark cdoctraining.org.uk on your computer, and your phone too, so you can always find it.

b) Note whether you registered with us using your work or your home email.

c) If you have not already done so, save your password for your student account on your computer/phone, write it down or email yourself. If you’ve already forgotten your password use the email address you registered with to try logging in and then go through the automatic lost password process.

Good, now that you have secured access – read on to learn a bit about the background to this course.

Now mark this unit as ‘complete’ by clicking the green button (bottom right). This will then allow you to move to the ‘Next Unit’ by clicking the purple button that appears at the bottom.