Abstract:

The geriatric population is increasing worldwide, including in our country.

For that reason, we decided to organize an online electronic course, oriented to members of the multi-disciplinary multi-professional rehabilitation team: students in Physiotherapy and in Nursing, and working medical specialists (medical doctors – general practitioners, and residents in Physical and Rehabilitation Medicine) and healthcare professionals (physiotherapists, nurses, medical assistants).

The GOAL of current study was to prepare an online long-life learning educational course on the topic “Geriatric rehabilitation” and to evaluate the efficacy of this course on professional competencies of different members of the rehabilitation team.

Design of the study:
We prepared educational materials, including presentations and an electronic monograph on the topic: “Physical modalities in gerontology and geriatrics”, from the series “Contemporaneous methods of rehabilitation”. Current work presents the phases of the preparation, realization and analysis of the results of the educational course on the topic “Geriatric rehabilitation”.
At the end of every part of the course, we sent via e-mail the electronic materials (free-of-charge for participants). The realized examination calculated the impact of the educational course on theoretical knowledge and practical skills of the learners. After the end of the tests, but before the information of participants for their results, we realized an anonymous survey for analysis of the learners’ opinion. We present the results of a total of 146 participants and analysis of 123 fully-fulfilled questionnaires.

Results:
We obtained positive impact of the electronic courses on learners’ professional competencies, especially on their theoretical knowledge. We are satisfied of the participants’ views on the course and educational materials, especially of the electronic book on the topic “Physical modalities in gerontology and geriatrics”.

Conclusion:
We consider that current educational course is important due to the important number of geriatric patients in the rehabilitation practice in our country.

Keywords:

Education, online course, geriatrics, gerontology, rehabilitation.