As a student nurse training within the health profession, I realised that a lot of patients whom are at old age experience dementia. During my first placement, I was working in the rehabilitation ward at Broadmeadows Health Service working under the guidance of my mentor, taking care of a seventy-eight-year-old patient, Mr Joseph. Mr Joseph was diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, end stage kidney failure and respiratory distress. During his stay in the hospital he had a regular schedules of dialysis, which was performed every other day, four hours each time. I had been asked by Mr Joseph personally to be taken to the dialysis theatre to proceed his dialysis. However, during handover that morning, I was informed that Mr Joseph’s
Throughout this line of study, Alzheimer’s disease is a specific form of dementia. According to Alzheimer’s Association, dementia is a general term for a decline in mental ability that is severe enough to hinder daily life. Memory loss is a symptom of dementia and the most common type of dementia is Alzheimer’s. One of the most common and severe symptom of Alzheimer’s is difficulty remembering newly learned information. The changes of Alzheimer’s normally begin in the part of the brain that affects learning (Overview Alzheimer's Association). Some other symptoms of Alzheimer’s include gradual memory loss, the decline in capability to carry out everyday tasks and the loss of their language skills. According to Bialystok the rate of
Literature Review: The Effectiveness of the use of Sensory Therapy for Elderly Adults Diagnosed with Dementia.
Dementia does not only impact the people with symptoms and it also disturbs the people who must care for the person. It is estimated that 1.2 million people are involved in the care of people with dementia. It has a financial burden on the Australian economy $4.9 billion in 2009-10. (1)
Fixed cognitive impairments are due to a single event. Traumatic brain injury may cause generalized damage to the white matter of the brain or localized damages. A temporary reduction in the supply of blood and oxygen to the brain may lead to this type of dementia. A stroke or brain infection can also be the cause of dementia. Excessive alcoholic intake results in alcoholic dementia. Use of recreational drugs cause substance induced dementia. Once the over use of these drugs are stopped he impairment persists but may not progress. Dementia which begins gradually and worsens progressively over
There are many reasons that Mrs. Yowell may have impaired mental functioning (see Table 1). The first and easiest reason to rule out would be a urinary tract infection (UTI). A urine sample can show if there are white blood cells (indicating infection) present in the urine. The increased levels of bacteria in an elderly person’s body can cause toxicity which leads to the altered mental status (Midthun, 2004). Most noted changes are confusion, agitation and lethargy.
Writing a research paper is very difficult. Picking a topic is even harder. The topic I have chose to write about is dementia. Dementia is a chronic or persistent disorder of the mental processes cause by brain disease or injury and marked by memory disorders, or personalities. This is a very personal topic for me. Researching this topic made me understand something that happen to me recently. My great-grandmother passed away May 21st, 2011. After ninety four years of a wonderful life she passed away. She was diagnosed with dementia two months before she died. You would never even think that she would have dementia. She never showed any signs of dementia besides the final days of her life. I feel like doing research on this topic
“The concept of dementia has been around since early civilizations. Ancient philosophers viewed mental decay as a normal part of ageing. The prevalence and study of dementia increased as the lifespan of humans extended. In the late 1800s, with advancements in medicine and the ability to look inside the brain, the medical community realized that diseases could cause this deterioration. The most common dementia was named, in 1910, after Alois Alzheimer, a German psychiatrist.
Over three million people every year are diagnosed with a group of conditions, called dementia. Dementia is not a disease itself, but instead is a term that is used to describe a range of symptoms. Actual diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease and strokes, can cause dementia. Alzheimer’s disease is the most common cause for dementia; it accounts for sixty to eighty percent of all dementia cases. Incorrectly, dementia is sometimes called “senility.” This is incorrect because the term “senility” portrays dementia and its symptoms as normal signs of aging, which is not the case.
A new study was released by the Alzheimer’s & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association that discovered more than one third of Alaska Natives and American Indians over the age of 65 are expected to develop dementia before turning 90.
Alzheimer’s and dementia are often thought of as an old age disease. Although the most commons risk factor is age but it is not the only one. Most majority of individuals do develop symptoms as elderly, but individuals that develop onset symptoms at a younger age, below 65 are said to develop early onset dementia (Lambert, M. A., Bickel, H., Prince, M., Fratiglioni, L., Von Strauss, E., Frydecka, D., & ... Reynish, E. L., 2014). Many researchers have conducted studies on the impact of cognitive disorders, such as dementia along with Alzhiemer’s, on the affects of the nonprofessional caregiver. Alzheimer’s disease doesn’t just affect the person but the affected person’s family and friends are affected as well.
As people age their need for care might highly increase depending of their health issues and needs. Not only does the frail older adult need to live in an environment that’s safe, it also needs to make them feel comfortable. Someone who have possibly early stages of dementia needs to live in an environment that will make living as easy as possible for the individual. It is also important that the environment in which the individual will live in provides a sense of encouragement for the person.
I had done some searching for a topic and found one on CNN news. I chose the topic: Dementia. The definition of dementia is; a chronic or persistent disorder of the mental processes caused by brain disease or injury and marked by memory disorders, personality changes, and impaired reasoning. It is not a specific disease because it varies a wide range of symptoms that deals with daily thinking or ability to do things with daily living. Alzheimer's is a part of dementia and accounts for 60 - 80 percent of cases. Vascular dementia is the second leading cause of dementia which occurs after a stroke. There are many other conditions of dementia which can be reversible, such as thyroid problems and vitamin deficiencies. People with dementia have a
The topic of dementia and Alzheimer’s is a personal for me. My grandmother will be 86 years old this year. For the last few years she has had a diagnosis of dementia, recently the doctors have mentioned she may be in the advanced stages of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Last year I learned about the antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties of Turmeric root powder. I started to research what Turmeric (Curcumin) could be used for; and I found it could be used for AD. I purchased Turmeric for my grandmother to drink in her tea, explained what to do with it and how Turmeric
Dementia is a degenerative condition caused by brain damage or disease. It may cause a series of influences, such as memory loss, cognitive impairment, inability of communication, and so on. People with dementia probably change their character from they used to have, and even get symptoms of illusions. Depend on different circumstance and course of disease, there may be many kinds of care-related problems. This study develops a guidance platform for the non-professional caregivers based on text classification using text mining technique and Support Vector Machines. And aim to accurately classify the documents or articles which typed in unstructured format into six domains defined by Clinical Dementia Rating, including memory, orientation, judgment
This assignment critically discusses about dementia, a widespread disability among older adults today. It provides an introduction to dementia and analyses its prevalence in society. The various forms of dementias are elaborated with description about dysfunctions and symptoms. Nursing Assessment and Interventions are provided in the further sections which discusses about actions nurses should take on while evaluating patients and treating them. Finally, communication, an important Activity of Daily Living (ADL) is explored and patient/carer advice is presented so as to maintain good health conditions in the patient.