Care Certificate, Standard 9 of 15
Mental health, dementia and learning disability
Distinguishing delirium, dementia and depression and why the distinction is urgent, an introduction to the main mental health conditions met in care work, learning disability and autism as differences rather than illnesses, and the five principles of the Mental Capacity Act 2005.
Why this standard matters in practice
Delirium is a medical emergency that looks like dementia to the untrained eye, and depression in older people gets dismissed as understandable. Telling these apart is the most clinically consequential knowledge in the whole certificate.
How it is assessed
The knowledge in this standard is assessed by a knowledge check, which you can take here as part of the Care Certificate course. Attempts are unlimited and marking happens on our servers, so the answers are never sent to the browser.
Your employer's assessor must also observe you applying it in practice before this standard is complete. That is how the Care Certificate is designed, and it is the reason a purely online Care Certificate does not exist however it is advertised.
Questions about Standard 9
How do I tell delirium from dementia?
Speed and fluctuation. Delirium arrives over hours or days, fluctuates through the day and usually has a physical cause: infection, medication, dehydration, pain. Dementia develops over months and years. A sudden change in someone's confusion is delirium until a clinician says otherwise, and it needs escalating the same day.