The focus of this elective is health education via service learning. Students will learn about dementia and
receive skills training to interact with patients with difficulty communicating or other cognitive impairments.
Each student will meet with a UCSF Memory and Aging Center patient with mild to moderate dementia for 2
hours per month for an academic year. The visits will allow patients to educate students about their symptoms
and how dementia affects their personal life.
There are currently over 5 million people with Alzheimer’s disease in the United States with estimates predicting 16 million by 2050. Health professionals will undoubtedly care for these individuals regardless of specialty or profession and need to learn how to accommodate patients who may have difficulty communicating or other cognitive impairments. The Memory and Aging Center at UCSF schedules 3,000 appointments annually, a third of which are new patient visits. By pairing UCSF students with these individuals, they will ultimately be able to better provide individualized quality of care to persons with dementia in the future.
This program is a unique opportunity for students in various professional schools (medicine, nursing, pharmacy, dentistry and physical therapy) to interact with this patient population in a community setting. During monthly small group meetings, students will have didactic sessions and also share their experiences to reflect and debrief on their interactions with patients and their families. They will also learn from students in other professions, allowing cross-professional learning and insights.