Evaluating The Proficiency Of Nursing Personnel After Specialised Vestibular Training

Abstract Background Our integrated care programme for older persons (ICPOP) is fortunate to have a senior physiotherapist (PT-Sr) who provides vestibular assessment and rehabilitation (VRT) to our patients in line with the World Falls Guidelines (Age and Ageing 2022). We applied for Spark funding to train healthcare professionals in ICPOP on the assessment and treatment of Benign Positional Paroxysmal Vertigo (BPPV). This review aims to establish competency levels of nursing staff following training and shadowing of the PT-Sr. Methods A 2-day training course was completed in ICPOP following a successful funding application. A basic vestibular assessment proforma was created by our PT-Sr to aid standardised assessment and treatment of BPPV. All patients completed a BPPV questionnaire (Kim H.J. et al, 2020) during comprehensive assessment and if positive went on to have a basic VRT prior to referral to our PT-Sr. Results 29 patients underwent a basic VRT by nursing staff prior to PT-Sr review. 9/29(31%) had no BPPV with both Nursing staff and PT-Sr. 7/29(24%) were diagnosed with BPPV by nursing staff and had VRT. When they returned to the PT-Sr their BPPV had resolved. 6/29(21%) patients had a basic VRT which did not resolve their BPPV and were followed up by our PT-Sr. 7/29(24%) patients had more complex forms of BPPV and were not treated by nursing staff but referred onto the PT-Sr. Conclusion A quarter of BPPV cases were resolved by nursing staff and didn’t require further VRT which shows effective competency levels in the infancy of its rollout. We acknowledge from the data that there will always be a group that require more specialised input and management by the PT-Sr and that referral pathway remains critical. It is intended that this training and upskilling of nursing staff will help alleviate some time pressures for the PT-Sr going forward.