Online course helps people worldwide understand dementia

The free online course, which goes for three months, was developed in 2012 and launched in 2013.

It was developed by the Wicking Dementia Research and Education Centre, which is part of the University of Tasmania’s Faculty of Health.

The MOOC attracted more than 22,000 enrolments in 2015.

More than 70,000 people from around the world have participated over the past three years.

Wicking Centre co-director Professor James Vickers said the course’s growing popularity was linked to awareness about the rapidly aging population. 

“The numbers of people with dementia are growing dramatically," Professor Vickers said. 

 He said that although there were no registers nationally, there would probably be between 7000 and 8000 Tasmanians with dementia currently. 

“With the aging of the population that's probably going to increase to 15 or so thousand by 2030 and then by 2050 it will be late 20,000s,” he said.

Due to the impending increase in dementia cases, Professor Vickers said it’s vital for Tasmania to prepare by adapting communities to be “dementia inclusive”.  

"We're going through a period of history where it's becoming much less stigmatised,” Professor Vickers said.

“Previously it was almost considered shameful to acknowledge that somebody in your family had dementia, they were kept at home or put in a residential facility...and they would sort of disappear almost from their local community."

He said now, however, it is becoming understood that people with dementia could still actively participate in their communities and maintain degrees of independence.

"Tasmania is going to have an issue with an aging population and a disproportionately high number of people with dementia, but that also gives us a chance to be the vanguard at trying to come up with the best way for supporting people with dementia and their carers and health professionals."

Research around early-onset dementia has gained traction, and the issue gained attention through successful 2014 drama film Still Alice based on a novel of the same name.

The film explores a linguistics professor diagnosed with early-onset familial Alzheimer’s disease. 

“That tends to have a very strong genetic story behind it,” Professor Vickers said.

“There are likely to be a number of genetic factors that drive the disease earlier in some people, and then you can potentially inherit those factors from your parents.

"There are some Tasmanian families we know of who are carrying those mutations, but there are probably other genetics to be discovered as well.” 

New content concerning younger onset dementia has been added to the curriculum in the last two years.

A section on how to create environments conducive to the best quality care has also been added. 

The MOOC model is a modern, online form of education, and Understanding Dementia has no assignments or exams and an emphasis on interaction through mediums including discussion boards. 

The course is divided into three sections: ‘The Brain’, ‘The Disease’ and ‘The Person’. 

“We were a bit worried that all the brain science would switch people off, but it was actually quite to the contrary, people actually found they learnt a lot from that," Professor Vickers said.

While some university courses seem to take up huge portions of time, the Understanding Dementia course expectations require students to dedicate about three hours a week to the course.

Pupils that complete the MOOC’s three units can request a certificate of completion.

Despite no formal assessments, students can gage their knowledge through weekly quizzes. 

The accessible course generates interest in a wide range of students, including health professionals and policy makers, community and residential support staff, people interested in dementia, and people in the early stages of the disease. 

"At the moment we don't teach enough about it [generally], even in our own health courses, and it's sort of a growing phenomenon as well, people want to know more about it," Professor Vickers said.

Professor Vickers said due to the flexible nature of MOOCs, they had a high dropout rate, with only 5 to 6 per cent completing their MOOC on average. 

Understanding Dementia has proved to be a popular exception, with almost 45 per cent of enrollees completing the course in 2015. 

Following the success of the Understanding Dementia course in recent years, the Wicking Dementia Research and Education Centre developed a complementary MOOC called Preventing Dementia.

The new MOOC was launched on Wednesday June 1, and Professor Vickers said it was a practical, informative way for people to learn how they could prevent dementia for themselves.

Preventing Dementia, which lasts five weeks, explores innovative research about the degenerative condition’s links to potentially modifiable factors.

Professor Vickers said it had recently been determined that about 30 per cent of dementia cases could be prevented.

Understanding Dementia enrolments open July 28.