THE GERIATRICS POSTINGS

Running head: GERIATRICS POSTINGS
Geriatrics Postings
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

GERIATRICS POSTINGS
Part 1: Posting 1
A 72-year-old woman was diagnosed with duodenal ulcers and was living under the
palliative care of an elderly home. She has two daughters, but both of them live outside the
town and rarely visit the patient. She complained of abdominal pains, constipation and
congested cough. Upon diagnosis, it was observed that the patient had gastrointestinal
bleeding, low oxygen saturation and duodenal ulcers. She had a past history of smoking over
ten cigarettes a day and ulcers. Currently, the patient had undergone laparotomy repair of the
perforated duodenal ulcers and complains of extreme abdominal pains. She has been
complaining of congested cough for two decades now but does not want to quit smoking.
Above all this, the patient report confirms diagnosis for Alzheimer’s dementia, where the
patient complains of forgetting simple things. The MMSE score of the patient is 18,
concluding moderate dementia in the patient (Creavin, 2016). With surgical incision in the
abdomen, it is difficult for the patient to perform daily chores. In a personal experience and
conversation with the patient, it was revealed that the patient was having suicidal thoughts
after the statement of ‘not wanting to live anymore’. A series of functional decline has been
observed in the patient, as the patient has gradually got bedridden with lost mobility and
consciousness. To perform her daily activities like going to the washroom or changing
clothes, the patient requires extensive support from helping nurses, for which two nurses
attend the patient on an alternate day basis. It is can be determined that as the patient is living
alone in a single room, she is deliberately getting isolated from the environment socially, but
the nurses rarely take her outside, where she can interact with other patients in the care home
and relive her social life. This aspect of care has incurred negative quality of life of the
patient. From the conversation with the supervisors in the elderly care home, it was found out
that the daughters of the patients have not been contacted and messaged about the

GERIATRICS POSTINGS
deteriorating health of the patient. The nurses have ignored bleeding from the sight of
surgical incision on several occasions, even after repeated complaints from the patient. The
health of the patient has deteriorated even after being in the care of the health care
professionals in the elderly care home. Several health promotion activities such as relational
inquiry, positive communication strategies, smoking cessation activities and interventions
along with patient-centered care could have been effective strategies to promote the positive
health of the patient. Societal change interventions are critical to improve the mental health
state of the patient and eliminate suicidal thoughts. In the care of this particular patient, the
nurses have overlooked the above-mentioned health promotion strategies or neglected it
deliberately, which is affecting the patient’s safety along with an increase in the probability
of negative health outcomes.
Part 2: Posting 2
Dementia is a syndrome with a progressive or chronic nature and is caused by
physical changes in the brain. Deterioration of ability to perform daily activities, behaviour,
thinking and memory are the key symptoms of this syndrome (Livingston et al., 2017). Even
though this syndrome is not considered to be a normal part of ageing, dementia mainly affects
the elderly population. With the progressive deterioration of the cognitive functions,
dementia can cause disability in older adults and increase dependency amongst them. The
most common form of dementia with over 60 percent of cases is Alzheimer dementia. With
chronic Alzheimer dementia, the person can have severe progressive memory loss along with
the critical deterioration of mental abilities. This hampers the person’s capabilities to perform
daily life functions. The Alzheimer Society of Canada is a group of active communities that
helps people living with dementia across Canada. This community service helps raise
awareness among the older adults regarding dementia and offer resources, information,

GERIATRICS POSTINGS
support and guidelines to improve the care for dementia syndrome. The website of the
Alzheimer Society of Canada is https://alzheimer.ca/en/Home/We-can-help/Our-services and
their address is 20 Eglinton Avenue West, 16th Floor, Toronto, Ontario, M4R 1K8. This
community aims at increasing the awareness about the issue of dementia and raise to the
concern of the individuals living with it to other health care organizations, communities,
policymakers and politicians to advocate the change for health programs, policies and
legislations at all government levels. Under the services provided by the community, ‘First
Link®’ is the referral program to help the newly diagnosed patients with dementia get help as
soon as possible and MedicAlert® Safely Home® is the service to help people with dementia
who are lost in familiar places. The community provides other services such as individual or
family support, brain health activities, peer support groups for people with dementia and
educational opportunities for people to learn more about this syndrome. This community
service seems to be an effective provider of support to people with dementia. However, as per
the data available on the site, it was last updated in August 2017. This sharply decreases the
validity of the information and raise concerns regarding the functional and operational
characteristics of the community service provider. However, as per the site’s data on the
spread of the community across Canada, it can be concluded that the community services are
available nationwide, giving a wide range of population easy access to such important
community services. The website has a clean and smooth user interface, making it easier for
the end-user to navigate through the resources and information available online. Looking at
the credibility of the information, the Alzheimer Society of Canada community service can be
deemed as highly adequate older adults living with Alzheimer dementia. The community has
strong guiding principles and a clear vision. Reviewing the site information and resources
regarding the Alzheimer Society of Canada, it can be concluded that the site can be

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recommended to the target population, that is, older adults with dementia and other people
(Sen, 2019).

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References
Alzheimer Society of Canada. (2019). Alzheimer.ca. Retrieved 23 December 2019, from
https://alzheimer.ca/en/Home/We-can-help/Our-services
Creavin, S. T., Wisniewski, S., Noel‐Storr, A. H., Trevelyan, C. M., Hampton, T., Rayment,
D., ... & Patel, A. S. (2016). Mini‐Mental State Examination (MMSE) for the
detection of dementia in clinically unevaluated people aged 65 and over in community
and primary care populations. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, (1).
Livingston, G., Sommerlad, A., Orgeta, V., Costafreda, S. G., Huntley, J., Ames, D., ... &
Cooper, C. (2017). Dementia prevention, intervention, and care. The
Lancet, 390(10113), 2673-2734.
Sen, N. (2019). An Evaluation of the Alzheimer Society of Canada Resource Guide to
Support Research Recruitment. Alzheimer's & Dementia: The Journal of the
Alzheimer's Association, 15(7), P1163-P1164.