Module 3



Module 3

Introduction

Alzheimer's disease is an irreversible disease of the brain, which is the most common cause of dementia. The disease is responsible for affecting the quality of an individual's life by affecting the memory, cognition, and self dependency. The signs and symptoms starts appearing after the age of 60 and the vulnerable or affected individuals require help and support of the health care professionals, caregivers and family members. Despite the rapid advancements of the health care system, there has been no treatment found for the disease till now.

The unavailability of the treatment regimen has resulted in an increased concern of the family members of the affected persons (Alzheimer's Association, 2011). Admittance of Alzheimer's disease patients in nursing care homes is very general, and in most of the conditions, the families feel that this practice makes them unable to take care of their loved ones. This has increased the burden in the nursing professionals, and the nursing homes.

One of the oldest practices by is the idea of family caregiving. The family caregivers include the spouse, children, close relatives and neighbors. These family members undergo a high amount of stress after the discharge of the patients as they are unaware of the process to take of these individuals. The method of caregiving can be stressful and disruptive for the family caregivers and in severe conditions; it can consume the entire relationship (Spitznagel, Tremont, and Duncan-Davis & Foster 2006).

Discussion

Proposed intervention

The proposed intervention for this situation is the teaching and training of the family members. This teaching includes several steps, including the stage when the family member is at home and the post- nursing home placement stage. The development of guidance is in a specialized manner, enabling family caregivers to take care of the Alzheimer's patient, and reduce the chances of institutionalization and changes in the lifestyle after the admittance of the patient in the nursing home. The session can be conducted by nursing professionals, and written, and verbal guidelines can be utilized.

Planning Model for Health Education

There exist models, whose creation helps in guiding the healthcare professionals, in order to deliver the health education in a more appropriate manner. These models are the professional guidelines for the healthcare professionals. The chosen model for this SLP module is Precede/proceed model.

Precede-Proceed Model

The developers of precede-Proceed are Green, Kreuter, and the co-workers, giving the professionals with a guideline to produce a structure that would predict and explain the factors linked to an intervention that to be implemented. It is a roadmap for these programs, and specifically guides the plan developers to achieve the desired results by developing a safe and efficient strategy.

This model is one of the most widely adapted models in the health care practice (Sharma, Romas2008). The implication into the community nursing practice, prevention of diseases programs, assessment of the requirements of the people and self-care has been massive, and more than one thousand papers published every year worldwide, incorporates this design (Brouseet al. 2003, Chiang et ...