Praxis Note on Alzheimer's Disease

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Praxis Note #1

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This semester I have been assigned to a specialty care home specifically design to accommodate people with dementia. More than ninety percent of the resident in the home has been diagnosed with dementia. After semester three, which is approx one year and a half ago, I remembered I learned about Alzheimer's Disease (AD). As time and stress has continuously catches me from school, work, and family. I admit that I have forgotten many details of caring for an AD patient in a nursing perspective. I know there is an urgent need for me to refresh my memory and gain new knowledge about the care that Alzheimer patient need in general.  

Elaborate

As I have entered into the home, I do not have much of an idea of what I am going to encounter for the next 12 weeks.  When I learnt that this is a home for a high population of individual's with AD. I was quite shocking. I know that AD is a condition that affects cognition function. People with AD will generally have an irreversible decrease cognitive function that will gradually progress over time. I also remember there are three different stages of AD, early stage, intermediate stage, and late stage. The later the stages the more advance the condition is. Depending on the development of AD, individual may have memory difficulties of where item should be place and repetition of takes and doing the same or similar task respectively. In terms of nursing care, I know that redirection is the key to nursing care. Nurses also have to cope with each individual's difficulties and needs. For the past two weeks for observing in home, I got a glimpsed of different stages of AD and what AD is. There are resident where I can make a rational conversation with while some requires total care, and there are many who are in-between of those two stages.  It is because I have a limited knowledge on their diagnosis, I felt every hesitant to act upon their needs. I felt the need of understanding this disease is vital for me to be efficient in this community. Thus I have decided to focus this praxis note on the nature of AD, I want to gain a strong understanding of what AD is and how to care those who is diagnosed with it. I want to know their risk factors, their diagnostic guidelines, commonly used medications, and nursing caring and techniques involved.

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AD is the most common type of dementia, a clinical syndrome marked by progressive impairment of cognitive functions that does not affect by delirium.  It is cause by plaques development between neurons and neurofibrillary tangles within neurons (Lewis, Heitkemper & Dirksen,2004). Individuals suffers from AD will experience a decline in cognitive function, memory impairment, and impairment of behaviour and thinking, with changes in intellect, mood, personality, and social behaviour (Lewis, Heitkemper & Dirksen,2004). The Diagnostic and Statisical Manual of Mental Disorders has defined a set of criteria for the diagnosis of AD: probable AD, Possible AD, Definite AD. The ...

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