NURSING

Leadership & Dementia



Leadership & Dementia

Part 1

Dementia is said to be a decline in mental ability that results in degradation of mental ability in terms of affecting memory, thinking as well as judgment, and there can also be an impact on the personality and ultimately lead to the deterioration of one's self. It is said to mainly impact people older than 60 years. It is one of the main causes of disability among the elderly. Causes of dementia are more common in the European Union region and is known as the Alzheimer's disease (50 to 70% of cases), and multi-infarct dementia that is said to result from successive strokes (almost 30% of cases). The other causes are Pick's disease, Binswanger's disease, dementia with Lewy bodies, the Parkinson's and other forms of dementia.

Contrary to the beliefs dementia is said to be more than the simple loss of memory. It causes deterioration in all mental areas and mental faculties as well as the intellectual functions. Most often, it is accompanied by changes in behavior and personality. With further studies being conducted on the disease, dementia, and it has been concluded that it is a brain damaging disease leading to symptoms and behaviors associated with dementia. There is now an increasing awareness of the faculties and emotions that persist despite dementia and upon severe cognitive decline. However, this increased knowledge has not yet translated into effective medical treatments that can reverse, pause or significantly slow the deterioration of brain function in cases of dementia. Treatments are to mitigate the effects of dementia is limited. This inadequate medical solution challenges us to look more precisely into how individuals could receive support to enable them to live well with dementia and how their experience of disability could be minimized, and how their families could benefit from support may help them cope correctly the illness of their loved ones (Tan, 2011).

Dementia does not only impact the elderly only since age is the main risk factor for developing dementia. The prevalence of dementia is growing rapidly, about 1.6% for those whose age is between 65 and 69 years, respectively 32.4% and 48.8% for men and women over 95 years. The best available estimates indicate that in 2006, more than 7.3 million European citizens between 30 and 99 years are living with dementia (14.6 per 1000 inhabitants). Women (4.9 million) are affected more than men (2.4 million). The demographic is bound to change and this proportion will increase further in the years to come and may double by the year 2020. Hence, in order to ensure that such statistics do not become a reality, it is necessary to adopt a policy and avoid such statistics does not reach those who suffer, but affects all family members who care for them. It is estimated that each family has a counting of a patient and that it is an average of three people who are directly affected by the individuals who are undergoing such mental state in other words, approximately 20 ...