Older People With Dementia Essay

During the onset of the disease, symptoms are usually non-existant, and progress slowly over the course of many years, often going unnoticed until they become more severe. Alzheimer's is somewhat difficult to diagnose, but there are some common symptoms to all patients. Memory loss occurs in all patients. The person may have trouble remembering small things such as phone numbers, or where he/she put the keys. Eventually, short term memory is lost, and only memories in the far past are able to be recalled. People with Alzheimer's can become disoriented and can get lost easily when out on their own. Mood changes also occur, and the person can be easily irritated or agitated by seemingly insignificant things. Cognitive deterioration also occurs, with the person losing the ability to understand spoken language or recall the meanings of different words (Grayson, "Recognizing Alzheimer's" 1). Despite these common symptoms, making a diagnosis is difficult since Alzheimer's patientscan display the same symptoms as a head injury or depression.

* Sometimes people with dementia do not feel there is anything wrong with them. They may become cross when people try to help. Carers often comment that people with Alzheimer’s show subtle changes to their personality. For example they might behave or react differently to how they did before they became ill.

Dementia refers to a syndrome which results in deterioration in thinking, memory, behavior, and ability to execute everyday activities and duties. Despite the fact that the syndrome is mainly associated with the older people, it is not a normal aspect or part of ageing. One of the major causes of dementia is the aspect of Alzheimer's disease. This disease contributes to about 60 to 70 percent of the cases of dementia. Dementia possesses psychological, physical, economic, and social impacts in relation to the family, caregivers, and the entire society. Dementia affects each individual in a diverse or different way with reference to the impact of the disease and personality following the development of the syndrome (Gao et al, 2013 p. 447).

Nurses and family members need to speak slowly and clearly, in a low pitched voice, maintaining an open friendly communication manner and also using eye contact and touch. Speaking slowly is very important as it allows patients who can’t have a conversation to understand you better, patients with dementia take longer to process information and sentences, so speaking style such as emotion, sound volume and what you say can be the difference between a patient with dementia understanding you and not. It slowly allows the patients enough time to take the words in and process the sentence. Speaking clearly and in a calm voice will help reassure the patient and help them cope with following your words. Speaking clearly and calmly will help relax the patient. A nurse should avoid speaking sharply or raising their voice, as this may distress the person even if they can't follow the sense of your words. Low pitched voice is used to calm the patient and not bring about any distress or frighten them. Low pitched tone can be used to sooth the patient if in any distress. Gaining eye contact with a patient is very important, if they are sitting down kneeling down at there level can be of benefit so they no you are there. This allows the nurse to get their attention and help them focus on the conversation without scaring them. Maintaining eye contact while speaking with the patient can also be of benefit. Love and affection can

Dementia cannot be classified as one specific disease as it is associated with many different types of diseases. Several different forms of dementia exist, with four of the most common including Alzheimer’s disease, Vascular Dementia, Frontotemporal Dementia and Lewy Body Dementia. Alzheimer’s disease named after a German physician, Alois Alzheimer, who first described it in 1906. Alzheimer’s

Although dementia is often viewed as an “old person’s disorder, its effects ripple down in many directions such as family, caregivers, finances, and the healthcare system, leaving behind many unanswered questions and confusion for all. The purpose of this paper will be to answer some of these questions, so that a better understanding of dementia will be possible. By doing so through research already performed,

Dementia is reported that it doubles every five years after the age of 65. The cognitive decrease related with dementia affects an individual’s capacity to understand and produce capability information. In addition, behavioral issues that grow as a outcome of the neuropathology such as repetitiousness, hallucinations, and paranoia may interfere with communicating with others. The likelihood of suffering from dementia increases with age. It mostly occurs in the second half of life. One is at a risk after the age of 65 to develop dementia. It usually progresses slowly. Dementia is mostly related with the older adult

As volunteer support worker working with dementia client in hospital and within the local community my duties include providing support, information to the clients we support and advocacy to enable them to make informed choices and decision. Offer emotional and practical support to all our clients also helps clients to maintain their independence as long as possible in all areas of their life by providing appropriate information, opportunity, counselling and support. For example; Mary was admitted in hospital due a fall she has and could not remember anything about it. When doing activity in the hospital ward singing for the brain she would recall most of the song. Gregor, K, (2012).

Assisting individual with dementia can be very rewarding but circumstances can arise that are hard for the client with dementia or carer and can even be both parties. Hence, as an experienced carer it is vital to try to see things from the service user’s point of view. When dementia progresses it will create behavioural problems that can be very confusing, irritating or strenuous for family or carers to cope with and this could make the carers, family members and others very upset and stressed. As a carer it is good to understand that there are many reasons why anyone with dementia may not be prepared to do exactly what we would like them to do. Individual with dementia should not be expected to go along with our wishes or stick to our standards.

Common signs of dementia include memory loss, especially with loss of memory for recent events such as forgetting messages, remembering names or asking the same questions repeatedly. Increasingly having difficulty with tasks and activities which require any organisation and planning. You may become confused in unfamiliar environments and have difficulty finding the right words and also have difficulty with numbers, for example handling money in shops. There would be changes in personality and mood and you might suffer from depression.

“Dementia is characterized by chronic, global, non-reversible deterioration in memory, executive function, and personality. Speech and motor functions may also be impaired” (Butler and Radhakrishnan, 2011). As defined by Butler and Radharkrishnan, dementia is a disease that affects a person for their whole life. In the next part of this paper, I’m going to talk about the dementia and the effects it has on a person live whether it is with the symptoms, overall experience with it, and what exactly it does to the body. Dementia isn’t a fun disease to have or deal with. According to the World of Health Organization, over 35 million people have dementia (Robitaille, Garcia, & McIntosh, 2015). I’m mainly going to talk about the specific type of dementia Alzheimer’s. “Alzheimer’s disease is defined as a type of dementia characterized by an onset and slow deterioration, and involves impairments in memory, speech, personality, and executive function”(Butler and Radharkrishnan, 2011). Memory loss isn’t just the only thing that happens with dementia. They also experience impairments in language, communication, focus, and reasoning (Ellis, 2013).

The early symptoms of dementia include language problems such as using the wrong word or forgetting simple words.Furthermore, they have difficulty to perform everyday tasks, like playing games.As the disorder becomes worse over time , they may see things that are not real or believe things that are not true. Also, dementia causes physical symptoms such as muscle weakness, weight loss and changing in sleep

Dementia is group of neuropathological disorders, and it is progressive and incurable disease. It is also most common in elderly people. Dementia is the loss of cognitive functioning—thinking, remembering, and reasoning—and behavioral abilities to such an extent that it interferes with a person’s daily life and activities. These functions include memory, language skills, visual perception, problem solving, self-management, and the ability to focus and pay attention. Some people with dementia cannot control their emotions, and their personalities may change. Dementia ranges in severity from the mildest stage, when it is just beginning to affect a person’s functioning, to the most severe stage, when the person must depend completely on others for basic activities of living. The most common types of dementia are Alzheimer’s disease and vascular dementia .

Dementia is a syndrome caused by multiple progressive illnesses that affects memory, thinking, orientation, behaviour, comprehension, calculation, judgement, learning capacity, language, and loss of motivation and emotional control. The syndrome is characterized by Alzheimer’s disease, dementia with lewy bodies, vascular dementia, and frontotemporal dementia. Dementia mainly affects older people. Alzheimer disease is the most common form of dementia.

Every person with dementia and reactions to the circumstances is unique, which may be related to the progressive changes in the brain