Get Dementia Clinical Care Certified
Taught by Amy Shaw, PA-C, this course gives professional caregivers a clear, practical understanding of dementia and the skills to provide confident, compassionate care.
You'll come away understanding the reasons behind the changes you see and able to respond with greater skill, confidence, and compassion.
“This training helped me build the understanding and skills to care for people with dementia and support their families. I am often the first to take an assignment with someone who has dementia because I feel confident caring for them.”
- Anna V., RN
Dementia and the Brain
What dementia is, the diseases that cause it, how the brain works, how dementia progresses, and how it's diagnosed.
Behavior & Medication Use
How to read behavior as communication, the full range of psychiatric symptoms and how they show up, how to gauge severity, and how they're managed, including a medication overview.
Hospice & End-Of-Life
What happens in the body in advanced dementia, how to align care with the medical realities families face, and what hospice is and how it supports comfort and dignity.
Why This Certification?
Many people who care for someone with dementia were never taught how dementia works. They're handed a diagnosis — or a shift assignment — and left to figure out the rest at the bedside. There's been plenty of training on what to do, but very little that explains why: what's happening in the brain, why behavior changes, and what that means for the care you give every day.
This certification closes that gap. Taught by a physician assistant who has spent her career at the intersection of dementia, palliative, and hospice care, it gives professional caregivers a genuine clinical understanding of the dementia journey — the kind that turns confusing moments into ones you know how to handle.
Meet Your Instructor
Amy Shaw is a physician associate (PA-C) with clinical experience across geriatrics, palliative medicine, hospice, and dementia care. She is the founder of Better Dementia®, an education company built on a simple idea: when caregivers understand what's happening in the brain, a better dementia journey becomes possible. As a clinician, she also works privately with families navigating the medical and end-of-life decisions dementia brings.
At Dementia By Day, Amy created the Dementia Clinical Care Certification, helping professional caregivers understand the medical realities of the dementia journey. She is the author of The Arc of Conversation: A How-to Guide for Goals of Care Conversations (Springer, 2025) and the forthcoming Better Dementia: A Caregiver's Roadmap (publishing 2027). Amy holds a Master of Physician Assistant Studies from Chatham University and studied human and non-human primate cognition at Emory University. Amy lives in Wyoming.
“I went through the training myself and found it very easy to understand and follow. I really liked how the information was explained in a practical way that caregivers can apply in real situations.”
- Oscar S., Care Community Administrator
What You'll Learn
- What dementia truly is, and how the brain works — in plain language you can use at the bedside
- Why people with dementia change the way they do, so behavior finally makes sense
- How to read behavior as communication and respond in ways that lower distress
- The full range of psychiatric symptoms — how they show up, how to gauge severity, and how they're managed, including a medication overview
- What's happening in the body in advanced dementia, and how to align care with the medical realities families face
- What hospice really is, how it works in dementia, and how to support families through the end of life with comfort and dignity