Effective Communication Strategies for Patients with Dementia

Effective communication is crucial in healthcare, especially during life-threatening situations or end-of-life care. Nurses spend most time with patients and their families, making them instrumental in providing information, listening to concerns, and offering emotional support. The article highlights the importance of active listening, empathy, and genuineness in nurse-patient relationships. Moreover, it emphasizes the significance of early intervention in dementia care, as delay can lead to increased progression of the disease. The author's personal experience interacting with patients with dementia further underscores the need for patient-centered care and effective communication strategies.

Element of Value Base Care 1
Assignment
Element of Value Base Care
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Element of Value Base Care 2
The Nursing practice requires many qualities. It requires specialised skills, knowledge and
honesty, integrity. There are many aspects of nursing practice. It includes the type of client,
different disease management. We should treat each patient equally without any
discrimination. This relation is based on mutual respect and trust. It is a helping relationship
in which we should be sensitive to self and others. Providing physical, emotional, spiritual
support to the patient and their family.( Anonson et al 2014)
Excellent communication skills are important for us. This helps in building an interpersonal
relationship with patient and family. We are able to take better care of the patient. This also
helps in building a relationship among the saff of the institute. More the communication by us
there is fewer chances of error. Also, it helps in creating a trust and positive environment.
Communication is very important to us, patients and also their relatives. By effective
communication, a comfort level with the patient is developed by which patient conveys his
pain, fear, shares anxiety.( Riley, J. B. (2015) Listening is a very important mode of
communication. It requires nursing skills and attention. By this, we can access the situation
and problems of the patient. By being a good listener nurses can provide care at all levels of
recovery.
Along with listening, speaking with the patient also becomes important. Conversations
should be held in appropriate condition. Each patient has its own way to discuss the problem.
After we had listened to all the problems we can talk to the patient.
A suffering person and its family members require support. This requires great sensitivity.
We need to be knowledgeable and should carry enough experience in nursing to deliver
sensitive information in a proper manner. Confidentiality is a very important aspect. We must
know what kind of information to be given and whom to be given. We should not give any
wrong kind of information or right information to the wrong person. It causes a negative
impact on the patient and the institution.
It is important to develop an integrated care pathway for the patient. At times Proper
symptom control is impossible in without proper communication . (James et al 2014)An
accurate assessment of patient’s health requires effective communication. Communication is
the centre of all treatment. Communication will deliver a great amount of care. In the society
conversation about any dreadful disease is often very awkward and difficult. Among the
health care professionals, there is a requirement of improvement of techniques to overcome
these obstacles. In last two decades, there is awareness of the importance of communication
skills.
We require taking in time quality decision, based on clinical expertise. The aim is to provide
better, healthy and safe care to the patients with most new techniques available. To practice,
nursing knowledge along with multiple studies needs to be utilised without any kind of
discrimination among the patients. All the patients have equal rights to access equal health
care. (Kourkouta, L., & Papathanasiou, I. V. (2014)

Element of Value Base Care 3
Age-related care approach is required.The approach is based on individual needs, it differs in
different age and medical condition. The approach helps to comfort the individual suffering
from the disease. We should be able to carry out tough conversations with the patients family.
These conversations include patient’s current health, the progression of a disease and
anticipated death. The information provided should be honest and it should be provided in a
way that the family members should be able to understand the situation. We need to be
knowledgeable and they should carry enough experience in nursing to deliver sensitive
information in a proper manner. (Douglas et al 2014)
Good communication with patient involves the ability to both give and receive information. It
is important for us to make the patient understand his/her condition. Also to prepare the
family for the near future events this will occur. However, In the case of sudden death, this
may come as a shock to the family. It is my duty to explain the correct situation of patient’s
health to the family so that they can deal with any sudden emergency. We need to understand
the goals of care. We need to keep patient’s relative aware about patient’s condition. For the
patient’s family circumstances change on a day to day basis depending on the patient’s
health. Open and sensitive communication works in the best way. It also depends on an
appropriate situation. This applies to us, patient and family members. Communication comes
naturally. It's not simple, it is always difficult to communicate if there is any life threatening
scenario. It required education and experience. The need of great communication skills is
required by worldwide especially in a situation of serious illness or end life care. We are the
one who spends most of their time with the patient and around them. Hence communication
with them plays a significant role. We help patient and their family to interpret the bad news,
they also play a crucial role in listening to them post such information. In this case, we need
to reflect positive care towards the patient and their family. (You et al 2013)Patients and their
families have concerns regarding the health of the patient. We should actively participate in
providing information and explaining the medical terminologies. They also need to listen and
find out most suitable option for the patient. In this stage giving accurate information and
understanding patient’s mental condition is very important. We need to be in constant
communication with the patient during their stay in the hospital. There may be in pain which
they are not able to communicate but their gestures will help you understand their symptoms.
It may happen that a person who is about to die communication is everything. As the
medicines have already played their role. It is a stage where a patient wants to say want he
actually feels and at the time someone who has knowledge and presence of mind is required.
The communication area has been surprisingly ignored but since two decades there has been
significant focus on it. The qualities of this relationship consist of active listening. In this, we
need to listen patiently what the patient is saying. It is important that the patient trusts us,
only then effective communication will happen. We have to respond to the patient, in the
same manner, addressing the concerns. We should have genuineness and empathy towards
the patient. Some relationship goes through a series of phases. (Eggenberger et al
2013)However, in many cases, the patient might take a good amount of time to understand
the patient and respond to it. We must focus on the outcome of trust, effective

Element of Value Base Care 4
communication and give equal treatment. (Butcher et al 2013)Researchers have shown that
care alone improves the quality of the life of the patient Moreover, they are able to
communicate in a better way and therefore sharing their concerns which are very important.
The care provided to the patient also helps in reducing cost. As the patient responds well to
the treatment he/she recovers faster. Hence helps in early discharge from hospital and
reducing the cost of the treatment. By using proper practices of care in many hospitals,
satisfaction and their reaction to towards the patient has improved. The institutes that support
the well-being of patients through proper care are known for better results of treatment.( Jeffs
et al 2014)
During my placement at AGE NI, I get to interact with patients having dementia. Dementia is
one of the broad categories of brain disease. It causes a gradual decrease in ability to
remember and think. The disease starts with the decrease in motivation, language problem
and day to day common problems. I have interacted with two patients with dementia. The
first patient was a 60 years old male. (Giebel et al 2015)He had mild dementia. At his stage
only he was experiencing memory loss of recent events. He was not liking to interact with
anyone. There was also a bit of frustration in him as he was constantly misplacing things.
Earlier he used to manage finances of his entire house but now he is not able to do it as he
does not remember recent events and gets confused easily. Also during the interaction, I
could feel that he has a lot of trouble expressing his thoughts and recalling anything. At this
stage, patient requires support from his family member. As I interacted with the patient that it
requires a lot of patient and effective communication strategy to listen to patients with
dementia.
Secondly, I met a 72 years old male, with the late stage of dementia. This is very much
different from the patient with early dementia. There was an almost loss of communication.
He required assistance in almost all the tasks performed. He was not much capable of
walking or sitting. (Hendriks et al 2016)For him, it was very difficult of swallow food hence
while eating his head had to hold up to prevent choking. It is important to give proper care to
dementia patient at an early stage so that its progress can be delayed. Once the disease
progressed to the late stage then it becomes very difficult to improve patient’s condition.

Element of Value Base Care 5
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