Welcome to our global course, Living with Dementia, Impact on Individuals, Caregivers, Communities, and Societies. >> Hello, my name is Nancy Hodgson and I'm an adjunct professor here in Johns Hopkins University school of nursing. I bring over 20 years of both clinical and research experience in dementia care. >> And my name is Laura Gitlin. I am a professor at Johns Hopkins University in the school of nursing and the school of medicine. I have over 30 years of research experience in dementia care. And I am the director of the Center for Innovative Care in Aging in the school of nursing, which is sponsoring this course. >> In this course, we embrace this notion that we are all in this together. We're going to provide you with some fundamental knowledge to make you dementia capable. This is core information that we all need to know in order to help individuals living with dementia. >> A little bit more about the course. First of all, it's on demand and you can find the course on Coursera website. You can take the course at any time, it's asynchronous. So do it when you were free and can reserve the time to understand the lectures. You will hear video lectures over five modules from internationally renowned faculty. >> You'll see the course assignments and the class schedule listed on the course website. There are five modules and you will find that them here on the Coursera website. You'll also see the schedule and ways of obtaining the certificate of completion or CE credit options. >> We also have a discussion forum you can feel free to post your comment on that Forum. This also provides an opportunity for you to network with colleagues in your region and also globally. Keep a mind, however, that our faculty cannot respond to individual emails nor will faculty be on the Discussion Forum. >> So there are five modules that are organizing this course. And we'll begin by thinking about the brain and providing you an overview of dementia. Then, we'll move on to thinking about the person who's living with dementia. Next, we'll expand our view to consider the caregiver. The family caregiver, the caregiving environment, most specifically the home environment. Next, we'll move on to the role of communities in supporting people living with dementia and we'll end with the role of the national plans and society at large, National Plans and Policies that can guide dementia care. >> We had several suggested readings. The first is a book by myself and Dr. Hodgson called Transforming Dementia Care for Individuals, Families, Communities and Societies. So keep your eye up for this in 2017. The next is a book by myself and colleague Dr. Piersol that provides very practical tips and strategies to help family caregivers and also providers understand ways to prevent and reduce and manage behavioral symptoms. >> We also want to bring your to attention to two other well known resources, the fast by Mace and Rabins is guide for family care givers called the 36-hour day, the second is guide for clinicians to health care practitioners by Dr. Rabins Lyketsos Steel called practical dementia care. >> All of these are available through Amazon and other sources. So Nancy, let's start a global dialogue about dementia. Let's learn how we can all work together to enable quality of life and quality of care for persons with dementia, families and communities, let's get started.