Dementia Case Study

Dementia Case Study

Part I: Introduction to Summative Assignment

This is a summative essay assignment based on the topic of dementia. The students of the class were divided into groups. Fortunately, I stayed with my friends in a group that comprised of five individuals. Being the leader of the group, I was supposed to manage the group activities and delegate responsibilities so that each group member can participate in the group activity.

This paper is divided into two sections. The first section introduces the topic with the rationale and choice and the expereince of working in a social work setting. The second secition revolves around the case study of an 85-year old widowed woman, named Mrs. Ruby Diamond.

This paper is based on topic of Dementia. The term dementia entered the English language from the French in a rendering of French psychiatrist Pinel's (1745-1826) word “démance” (from Treatise on Insanity, 1806). Its ultimate source is Latin, meaning “loss” (or out) of “mind” or “reason.” Some forms of dementia are transitory, while others are neurode-generative and fatal. Dementias may co-occur or present independently. They include Alzheimer's disease (AD) and vascular dementia (VaD) (formerly, multi-infarct dementia [MID]), the two most common; dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB); Pick's Disease (PD); and dementias due to other medical conditions such as HIV disease, Huntington's Disease (HD), Parkinson's Disease (PaD), and dementia due to Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease.

What motivated me to choose the topic of dementia is the fact that The lack of specificity problematizes pharmacological research strategies, as well as the elucidation of distinct disease etiologies even in the rare cases of the familial AD (about 2% of cases) and where there is an increased risk (e.g., with apolipoprotein 4). Increasingly, researchers suggest that AD is brain aging, not a disease process.

Social science interest in dementia centers on AD and sees related biomedical theory and research as cultural practice. Research areas include the decreasing clarity of disease differentiation and etiology; the promotion of ill-defined precursor states and their ethical challenge; the cross-cultural variation in the meaning and roles of cognition, memory, seniority, and caregiving; the evident sociocultural and political features of the development of AD as disease; gender issues in research and its interpretation; the role of pharmaceutical companies in disease conceptualization; dementia narratives, and the study of the medical sciences such as genetics within the cultural studies of science from medical anthropology.

All the groups were given the task to visit any healthcare institute or a hospital and record the observations for a selected individual patient (Mrs. Diamond in this case). For our group, the patient (Mrs. Diamond in this case) in case was Mrs. Ruby Diamond, an elderly woman, aged 85. She was being treated for dementia.

We had the opportunity to visit Mrs. Diamond at a local hospital in London, where she was admitted and was being under the supervision of a team of doctors including; Dr. Smith, Dr. Michael, and Dr. Jenifer. Dr. Smith was leading the team and he helped us a lot with our assignment ...