Dealing Patients with Dementia

Dealing patients with Dementia

Introduction

The word 'Dementia' as defined by World Health Organization, is a clinical syndrome due to a brain disease, characterized by intellectual or cognitive decline in comparison with the previous mental state, mostly of a chronic and/or progressive nature. It involves deterioration in higher mental functions, like thinking, decision making, memory, understanding, language and intellectual functions. This decline is usually accompanied by deterioration in social conduct and emotional behaviour. (WHO, ICD-10)

According to Cognitive Function and Ageing Studies (CFAS), dementia is most prevalent in the age group above 80 years. Regarding gender differences, it is found that dementia is more prevalent in women in comparison to men (CFAS, 1998). Dementia can be a presenting symptom or association of a variety of disease like Alzheimer's disease, Vascular Dementia, Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, Lewy Body Dementia and HIV. Dementia can also be classified according to the age at the time of diagnosis; as early-onset dementia (previously known as pre-senile dementia), when it develops before the age of 65; and late-onset dementia (previously known as senile dementia) that develops after the age of 65. This distinction helps in establishing the cause of dementia since some causes are more often found in one age group than other.

Caring old people with dementia is a challenge. People when old and weak are really complicated to handle. And because of the progressive nature of the disease, patients get on deteriorating and dependent with the passage of time. Dementia not only impairs cognitive functions of a patient but also results in decline of the physical activity and mobility of the patient due to short term memory loss. Healthcare Professionals, especially those working in a mental health setting must be well aware of the issues confronted in people with Dementia. A mental health setting must be established in such a way as to accommodate and facilitate its patients. For instance, the architecture must be such that it's easy to find ways there. For this purpose several guidelines have been developed. In this regard, two guidelines are worth mentioning, namely 'A NICE-SCIE (National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, Social Care Institute for Excellence) Guideline on supporting people with dementia and their carers in health and social care' and 'Management of patients with dementia --A national clinical guideline' by Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network (SIGN). In this essay we will review two articles on 'dealing patients with dementia', but before that we need to understand Dementia as a syndrome, its symptoms and presentation and the possible issues a patient with dementia usually comes across.

While working with people with dementia, the principle of 'person-centred care' must be practiced. We can't treat every patient with dementia as same or equal. Patients with dementia represent a diverse group with great variation in their physical and emotional needs. It should be taken into account that every patient with dementia is respected. Healthcare workers need to know minor details about their patient including his/her biography, social interests, religious beliefs and cultural or ethnic ...