Geriatric Nursing And Dementia: Essential Knowledge For Nurses

What is Geriatric Nursing?

Discuss about the Importance of Geriatric nursing studies.

Geriatric nursing collectively means nursing or relatively taking care of people who are older. Geriatric specialists are mostly found in sensitive departments of care hospitals, restoration centers, nursing abode and solitude homes. It gives information on major effects that influence the health of older people as they are more liable to have several chronic health challenges. Geriatric clients need more health care attention than younger individuals. It is necessary that all the nurses are required to acquire special knowledge about the older generation (Williams, 2015).

Care attention for older patients needs an appropriate evaluation of the elderly’s health condition. Physical, mental, cultural practices, natural conditions and health program procedures may affect their health conditions. For example most elderly persons than young are prone to a mental condition called dementia. It is not a disease in particular rather it is a word that involves signs and symptoms that are related to the decrease of memory capacity and other thinking abilities that are so critical and have negative effect how an old person carries out daily activities.

Graduating nurses must be inholding knowledge about dementia, its effects and what causes it.  One of the most common type of dementia is the vascular dementia which occurs mostly as a result of stroke.  The elderly’s medications employed is a major contributing factor to dementia so nurses in other medical field should be very alert when giving medication. Also deteriorated communication, tribal or cultural deviations, and language impediment are some of the factors that cause dementia. Short term memory is also influenced by opprobrium or neglect by relatives in ways like being in an unclean environment, poor nutritional habits, social isolation, inadequate help needed to improve their everyday activities without altering with the elderly’s resources, and lack of assistance to the older individuals to keep up their self-reliance. (deWit & Williams, 2015).

 Integrated and aggrandized knowledge and skills in offering safe and effective quality healthcare to older dementia patients in primary care show the ability to treat and prevent dementia in older patients in basic care. Managing and negotiating within the systems of offering health care services to the elderly patient in primary care supervises and ascertains a high-quality health care service delivery for elderly patients. It also incorporates a comprehension of inclinations in aging processes, coordinating and offering basic health care for the patients. 

Understanding Dementia in Elderly Patients

In working with an older patient, the physician or a registered nurse who has completed the course and is about to graduate should: Evaluate the client’s mental conditions and cognitive skills, comprehend client’s urgency and other chronic health complications. He or she should also elaborate other factors that would cause dementia, such as falls, inability to control oneself, altered sleeping sequences and sexual matters. The nurse should also be able to organize medications, instruct the client on individual’s safety and disease precautions. He or she should expound and suggest modifications to the clients’ medication record and ensure an agreed treatment plan that connects the client to the other local resources that are necessary. (Meiner, 2014).

The functions of gerontological advanced practice nurses in geriatric care (GAPN) are essential practices to perform in the care of dementia patients. They involve offering focused health examining, guiding, crisis interposing, and thorough care to the population. They play the very important role as advocates in instructing the proper usage of assets and giving referrals that support continuity of care made particularly for the requirements of elderly adults. GAPN also Form and express a problem record. They also amend the process and new interventions as required.  (Miller, 2010).

In some cases, symptoms from different dementia patients are sometimes complicated and might embroil treatments and attributes of a diagnosis of an elderly patient care. A graduate is anticipated to have comprehensive knowledge and effective skills in the treatment of these illnesses, including the unusual signs, disease processes and symptoms that are normal and expected from an aged client. When offering care and help to the dementia patients, the nurse should comprehend the various feasible challenges as well as endangering factors in the treatment process as currently there is not even a single test for dementia discovered (Touhy & Jett, 2015).

As a nurse who has graduated, you will also give support to other physicians and doctors by assisting with health inspections. The nurse will also be needed to give other medical services which involve executing orders of prescribed drugs and other treatments. He or she will also be accountable for Reith patients for surgeries and assembling tools and equipment. The nurse is also anticipated to uphold organized, modified records for dementia patients under their care so that the doctor will have an appropriate chart on which they would use to make their endorsement for care. Much of their biggest roles as the geriatric nurse would also include frequent reporting (Kockrow & Christensen, 2014).

The Role of Graduate Nurses in Dementia Care

Graduating nurses should be equipped with knowledge on positive attributes of caring for the dementia patients. They should develop the intimate attachment with the elderly patients by reviewing their histories. These nurses should also learn how to work and emphasize concurrently. It is also relevant to subdue their fears and the undesirable views and opinions on the geriatric nursing

In spite of the significant part of the population becoming elderly, as well as a good proportion of dementia clients using the health care system, the literature demonstrates that health care experts, such as registered nurses and nursing students, lack adequate knowledge of how dementia clients deviate from temporary memory failure in younger clients like the youths in terms of syndrome projection and expected complications (Ralph & Taylor, 2010). Some registered nurses are not aware of the fact that elderly patients have dementia and it is not common among the young people, such as myocardial infarctions, pneumonia, drug effects, and anxiety. Some associates pointed out that most nurses had inadequate and inaccurate knowledge about dementia in old people than any other health professionals. Cognitive insufficiency may challenge the estimation of pain which is as a result of nurses not being confident with their evaluations and disc lining to give painkillers which may also impede death in a health care center. (Wilkins, 2018).

More health related complications resulting from hospital operations are commonly not exposed or addressed by registered nurses. For instance, hospital operations largely contribute to a significant decrease in the number of older patients, and hence many registered nurses don’t have the knowledge in cautioning and treating some diseases. Another example is that delirium, a common and a powerful life-threatening illness affecting hospitalized geriatric patients, is not familiar to nurses (Miller, 2018).

So, how does this study address a gap in the literature?

 First of all, it does not only address nurses-client attitudes, the study is a basic step towards ensuring that they make some sense in their activities and understand the health requirements of dementia patients. Although there no diagnosis for dementia yet, graduate nurses can prevent the disease by digging deeper in the genetic history of the patient, by contacting a close family member, going through his or her past medical records. In case the patient tends to have dementia signs mentioned above the nurse should educate the patient to eat healthy, do creative physical exercises such as songs that are memorable to improve his or her brain cells, drink a lot of water, keep warm and clean during cold seasons and avoid doing so heavy duties for prolonged time. The patient should also get enough hours of rest and sleep.   (Eliopoulos, 2013).

Gerontological Advanced Practice Nurses in Dementia Care

Also graduate nurses can contribute in eradicating dementia in old people by improving their communication skills. That is they should be able to communicate effectively, politely and persuasively. Starting with their medications the graduate nurse should prescribe the medications in writing form. This is because dementia patients tend to be forgetful and sometimes may end up taking overdose, but when the dosage is prescribed in writing they can read and taken the right dosage at the right time. All these can be made possible if the nurses would make regular visits in the homes of the old to ensure that the elderly patients are consistent to the routine and observes all the instructions given. Sometimes if the health conditions seems persistent in some patients the nurse may recommend the patients to be trans located to other regions with different climatic conditions that may be worsening their health conditions (Aiken, 2014).

Dementia conditions content requires being seriously and strategically included in the entire academic curriculum. This means that the schools and departments accountable for teaching clinical and surgical nursing, pathophysiology and pharmacology should be well equipped with professionals who are aware of the differences amongst elderly clients and young clients in physiology, response to treatment, and revealing of mental disease symptoms. This is achievable by having registered nurses working in the medical environment to work with and guide the graduates when recording and presenting gerontological data during pathophysiology and pharmacology learning sessions  (Capezuti, et al., 2011).

References:

Aiken, L. R., 2014. Human Differences. s.l.:Taylor & Francis.

Capezuti, E., Zwicker, D. & O’Meara, A., 2011. Evidence-Based Geriatric Nursing Protocols for Best Practice. 4 ed. s.l.: Springer Publishing Company.

deWit, S. C. & Williams, P. A., 2015. Study Guide for Fundamental Concepts and Skills for Nursing – E-Book. 4 ed. s.l.: Elsevier Health Sciences.

Eliopoulos, C., 2013. Gerontological Nursing. illustrated ed. s.l.: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.

Kockrow, E. O. & Christensen, B. L., 2014. Adult Health Nursing – E-Book. 6, reprinted. s.l. Elsevier Health Sciences.

Meiner, S. E., 2014. Gerontologic Nursing – E-Book. 5 ed. s.l.: Elsevier Health Sciences.

Miller, C. A., 2018. Nursing for Wellness in Older Adults. 8 ed. s.l.: Wolters Kluwer Health.

Miller, J. C., 2010. Practice Questions for NCLEX-PN. 2, revised ed. s.l.: Cengage Learning.

Ralph, S. S. & Taylor, C. M., 2010. Sparks and Taylor’s Nursing Diagnosis Pocket Guide. s.l.: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.

Touhy, T. A. & Jett, K. F., 2015. Ebersole & Hess’ Toward Healthy Aging – E-Book: Human Needs and Nursing Response. 9 ed. s.l.: Elsevier Health Sciences.

Wilkins, L. W. &., 2018. Lippincott Visual Nursing: A Guide to Clinical Diseases, Skills, and Treatments. 3 ed. s.l.: Wolters Kluwer Health.

Williams, P. A., 2015. Basic Geriatric Nursing – E-Book. 6 ed. s.l.: Elsevier Health Sciences.