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My Sage Process, And The Lgbt Community, Mental Health Issues, Treatment Options

Decent Essays

Prior to starting the My Sage process, the main interactions that I have had with elders have been with my grandparents. When thinking about it, I still have had limited interactions with elders as of recently because I have not been talking to my grandparents as often as I should. Through taking this course, I have kept my grandparents in the back of my mind as learning the different aspects of things that elders encounter on a daily basis. The readings, guest speakers, class discussions, and lectures have helped me to accumulate the appropriate knowledge that is needed when working with elders as a social worker. The field of gerontology and working with elders is booming in the social work profession. More people are living longer …show more content…

This is a topic that My Sage and I were able to talk about. We talked about the reasons why elders with cognitive distortions would have a hard time with this specific therapy and looked at the symptoms of dementia together to look at their memory, which we found evidence from in the book (McInnis-Dittrich, 2014). Dementia is a biological dysfunction that affects cognitive and intellectual functioning, and affects five to ten percent of older adults. It is also an umbrella term for Alzheimer’s, which is also a cognitive dysfunction that gradually affects the brain (McInnis-Dittrich, 2014). We also talked a lot about dementia through class discussion and learning through the experiences that my classmates have had and we concluded that the book was right when saying that people with that distortion would not have an effective time with that specific type of therapy.
An interesting and intriguing lecture that we had from Dr. Agarwal also broke down the aspects of delirium, dementia, and Alzheimer’s and how they affect one another. Throughout her lecture, I learned that it is important for not just social workers, but doctors and all health care professionals to be aware of the medications that the elders are on that could cause delirium. Sometimes pills are giving to the elders to treat a condition that they have without recognizing the mental consequences that they may cause. She also informed us that most doctors are focused on the here and now and

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