How experiential education and practical care skills can strengthen dementia capability across the PACE interdisciplinary team
Every September, National PACE Month recognizes a model built around a clear goal: help older adults with complex needs receive coordinated, person-centered care while continuing to live in their communities.
For PACE organizations, fulfilling that promise requires a workforce prepared to support people living with dementia.
Dementia affects how participants understand instructions, communicate discomfort, respond to touch, navigate unfamiliar environments, accept personal care, and interact with the PACE team. Dementia education therefore supports the daily work of the entire organization, from clinical care and rehabilitation to transportation and family engagement.
PACE, the Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly, serves adults age 55 and older who meet their state’s criteria for nursing home level of care but can live safely in the community with PACE support. Care may extend across the PACE center, the participant’s home, inpatient facilities, and other settings. An interdisciplinary team coordinates each participant’s medical care, therapies, social supports, transportation, nutrition, and other services. CMS describes coordinated, comprehensive care as central to the PACE model.
Dementia is already a major part of this work. The National PACE Association reported that 46 percent of PACE participants were living with dementia in its 2025 program data. Earlier research involving 23 PACE programs found dementia among more than half of the participants studied.
These figures support a practical conclusion: dementia capability is a core competency for organizations serving the PACE population.
Traditional dementia education can focus narrowly on diagnosis, disease progression, or a list of behaviors. That information is important, but staff also need skills they can use during a rushed morning routine, a difficult transfer, a noisy ride to the PACE center, or a moment when a participant cannot explain what is wrong.
PACE is well positioned to improve dementia care because its interdisciplinary team sees different aspects of a participant’s health and daily life. Home-based services reveal routines and environmental factors that may not be visible during a clinic visit. Ongoing contact creates opportunities to notice subtle changes. Relationships with family care partners make shared problem-solving possible.
A shared understanding of dementia can make these observations more useful. A driver’s report that a participant suddenly resists getting into the van may help the team consider pain, fear, sensory overload, or a change in cognition. Distress during bathing may prompt the team to review the environment, communication style, or care approach. A family caregiver’s concern about nighttime restlessness may inform nursing, social work, and primary care planning.
CMS guidance states that PACE team members are responsible for sharing changes in a participant’s medical, functional, and psychosocial condition and remaining alert to input from colleagues, participants, and caregivers. A shared dementia-informed vocabulary can support that responsibility.
Effective dementia education should help team members understand what a participant may be experiencing and choose a more supportive response. AGE-u-cate Training Institute’s Dementia Live® and Compassionate Touch® address these needs in complementary ways.
Dementia Live is an immersive education program designed to help participants better understand cognitive and sensory challenges that may accompany dementia. A guided simulation and facilitated reflection help learners consider how environmental stimulation, unclear directions, time pressure, and task complexity can contribute to confusion or distress.
The experience can change how staff interpret a participant’s response. Someone who appears uncooperative may feel overwhelmed. A participant who does not follow a direction may need fewer words, more processing time, or a visual cue. Repeated questions may reflect anxiety or an unmet need.
Dementia Live is relevant across the PACE workforce. Clinical professionals, personal care staff, drivers, reception teams, dining staff, volunteers, leaders, and family care partners can develop a common frame for recognizing and responding to dementia-related needs.
In an AGE-u-cate case study involving a North Central Texas regional initiative, Dementia Live participants reported gains in dementia understanding, confidence, and awareness of community resources. The initiative used a train-the-trainer approach to extend education across a wide geographic area. Read the Dementia Live case study.
Compassionate Touch® combines skilled touch with specialized communication techniques intended to build trust, ease stress, and create meaningful connection for people living with dementia. The approach can be incorporated into personal care, transitions, comfort care, and moments of anxiety or agitation.
This is especially relevant in PACE, where care is relational and often hands-on. Participants may receive help with bathing, dressing, mobility, clinical procedures, rehabilitation, or end-of-life care. For someone living with dementia, unexpected or task-focused touch can feel confusing or threatening even when the caregiver intends to help.
A dementia-informed approach encourages staff to slow down, establish connection, seek permission, observe nonverbal responses, and adapt to the individual.
AGE-u-cate describes Compassionate Touch as an evidence-based, person-centered approach that can be integrated into staff education, family engagement, and organizational culture.
Together, the programs create a useful learning sequence. Dementia Live develops insight into the participant’s experience. Compassionate Touch gives staff practical ways to apply that insight during care.
Dementia education has the greatest value when organizations reinforce it through routine operations instead of treating it as a one-time event. PACE leaders can begin with five practical steps.
Include the people who shape each participant’s experience, including clinicians, therapists, aides, activity professionals, drivers, dietary teams, front-desk employees, contractors, volunteers, and leaders.
Use real care routines to help the team apply what it learned. Document communication preferences, environmental stressors, helpful approaches, and known triggers in the participant’s individualized plan of care when appropriate.
A coach or train-the-trainer model can help organizations educate new employees, reinforce core practices, and extend training across centers and service areas.
Families provide much of the participant’s day-to-day support at home. Shared language and practical techniques can improve collaboration with the PACE team and promote consistency across settings.
Look beyond course completion. Organizations may track employee confidence, family feedback, care-plan documentation, staff observations, and patterns of distress during care. Evaluate any clinical or financial outcomes through the organization’s own quality-improvement process.
National PACE Month gives organizations an opportunity to celebrate what makes the model distinctive and to assess the capabilities their teams will need in the years ahead.
Organizations can make dementia education part of how employees communicate, observe, collaborate, and provide care. Dementia Live and Compassionate Touch offer a practical path from understanding the participant’s experience to applying supportive skills in daily interactions.
This approach fits the purpose of PACE: coordinated care that recognizes the whole person, supports family care partners, and helps older adults remain connected to their communities.
This National PACE Month, consider how experiential dementia education could strengthen your interdisciplinary team. Connect with AGE-u-cate Training Institute to explore how Dementia Live and Compassionate Touch can support staff development, family education, and dementia-informed care across your PACE organization.