MULTIMEDIA NUTRITION EDUCATION FOR CAREGIVERS

Assisted living facilities are one of the fastest growing means of providing assistance to the elderly but generally, the care is provided by untrained, nonprofessional caregivers. The objective of this project will be to develop a CD-ROM based assisted living employee training program focused on one aspect of nutritional care to improve the quality of care for residents. The aims include: 1) conducting a training needs assessment regarding baseline knowledge of nutrition of assisted living caregivers; 2) designing a CD-ROM based training program using one component, "Food Preparation", for caregivers; 3) developing and testing the module on the CD-ROM for training; and 4) demonstrating the feasibility for development of an effective interactive, multimedia CD-ROM based training program to provide nutrition education for caregivers. Assisted living caregivers will be surveyed to determine baseline knowledge of nutrition. Through collaboration with technical and health related professionals, education of one aspect of nutrition, "Food Preparation", will be developed on interactive, multimedia CD-ROM. The CD-ROM prototype will be used and evaluated by assisted living caregivers and administrators to determine the effectiveness of education. If successful, a complete CD-ROM based nutrition program will be developed which will include six (6) training modules to provide comprehensive nutrition information in all domains of nutrition care.