Nursing Interventions for Dementia

Dementia

Dementia is a decline of reasoning, memory, and other mental abilities (the cognitive functions). This decline eventually impairs the ability to carry out everyday activities such as driving; household chores; and even personal care such as bathing, dressing, and feeding (often called activities of daily living, or ADLs).

• Dementia is most common in elderly people; it used to be called senility and was considered a normal part of aging.
• We now know that dementia is not a normal part of aging but is caused by a number of underlying medical conditions that can occur in both elderly and younger persons.
• In some cases, dementia can be reversed with proper medical treatment. In others, it is permanent and usually gets worse over time.

About 4-5 million people in the United States have some degree of dementia, and that number will increase over the next few decades with the aging of the population.

• Dementia affects about 1% of people aged 60-64 years and as many as 30-50% of people older than 85 years.
• It is the leading reason for placing elderly people in institutions such as nursing homes.

Dementia is a very serious condition that results in significant financial and human costs.

• Many people with dementia eventually become totally dependent on others for their care.
• Although people with dementia typically remain fully conscious, the loss of short- and long-term memory are universal.
• People with dementia also experience declines in any or all areas of intellectual functioning, for example, use of language and numbers; awareness of what is going on around him or her; judgment; and the ability to reason, solve problems, and think abstractly.
• These losses not only impair a person's ability to function independently, but also have a negative impact on quality of life and relationships.

Many older people fear that they are developing dementia because they cannot find their glasses or remember someone's name.

• These very common problems are most often due to a much less serious condition involving slowing of mental processes with age.
• Medical professionals call this "benign senescent forgetfulness," or "age-related memory loss."
• Although this condition is a nuisance, it does not impair a person's ability to learn new information, solve problems, or carry out everyday activities, as dementia does.

Types of Dementia

The Different Types of Dementia

Dementing disorders can be classified many different ways. These classification schemes attempt to group disorders that have particular features in common, such as whether they are progressive or what parts of the brain are affected. Some forms of dementia are classified as either primary or secondary dementia. Examples of primary dementia include:

• Alzheimer's disease
• Vascular dementia
• Lewy body dementia
• HIV-associated dementia
• Huntington's disease
• Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and more.

Examples of secondary dementiainclude:

• Progressive supranuclear palsy
• Multiple sclerosis
• ALS dementia
• Normal pressure dementia

Nursing Care Plan for Dementia

Nursing Interventions for Dementia

Nursing Interventions in depressed elderly patients with impaired thought processes; dementia / forgetfulness.

Nursing Interventions Dementia for patients:

Objectives allow the patient to:

• Know / oriented towards people's time and place.
• Perform daily activities optimally.

Action :

• Give an opportunity for patients to know their personal belongings such as beds, cupboards, clothes etc..
• Give the opportunity for patients to know the time by using a large clock, a calendar that has a large sheet of paper per day with.
• Give the opportunity for patients to mention his name and closest family members
• Give the opportunity for clients to know where it is located.
• Give praise if the patient when the patient can answer correctly.
• Observation of the patient's ability to perform daily activities
• Give the opportunity for patients to choose the activities that can be done.
• Help the patient to perform activities that have been chosen
• Give praise if the patient can perform activities.
• Ask if the patient feel able to perform its activities.
• With patients to schedule their daily activities.

Nursing Interventions Dementia for Family

Objectives:

• Families are able to orient the patient to time, people and places.
• Provides advice needed to conduct patient-oriented reality.
• Assist patients in performing daily activities.

Action :

• Discussions with family oriented ways of time, people and places on the patient.
• Encourage families to provide a large clock, a calendar with a big sign.
• Discussions with the family that once owned the ability of the patient.
• Helps families who do choose the ability of patients at this time.
• Encourage the family to give praise to the ability of the capabilities that are still owned by the patient.
• Encourage the family to monitor the elderly carried out in accordance capabilities.
• Encourage the family to monitor the daily activities of patients in accordance with a schedule that has been created.
• Encourage families to give praise to the capabilities that are still owned by the patient
• Encourage families to help patients perform activities according to capabilities.
• Encourage the family to give a compliment if the patient carried out in accordance with the schedule of activities that have been made.

Reference :

www.emedicinehealth.com

www.medicinenet.com

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