Treating Dementia Assignment
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Added on 2020-04-21
Treating Dementia Assignment
Added on 2020-04-21
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Running head: TREATING DEMENTIATREATING DEMENTIAName of the StudentName of the UniversityAuthor Note
1TREATING DEMENTIADementia can be understood as a category of symptoms due to disorders affecting the brain (www.alz.org, 2017). The typical symptoms are loss of memory, difficulties in the thought process, in language or problem solving abilities. This greatly affects the ability of the individual to conduct day to day activities. Dementia can also cause changes in behaviour, mood and personality. This is generally caused due to a decline of the normal mental functioning due to the Detoriation of the brain caused by aging. Several different disease can cause dementia, like Alzhimer’s disease, Lewy Body Disease, vascular dementia, fronto-temporal dementia, head trauma, Parkinson’s disease, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and Huntington’s disease. An individual with dementia, can be suffering from more than one of these diseases. Treating dementia depends on its causality, however progressive forms of dementia (like Alzhimer’s) have no treatment or cure to slow or stop the progression of the disease (Rizzi, Rosset & Roriz-Cruz, 2014). However there are few medicines that can help to manage the symptoms of advanced dementia. Cholinesterase inhibitors can also be used tomanage the symptoms of mild or moderate dementia (Hahn & Paik, 2015). However, improvement in their conditions and quality of life can be done by proper care giving, providing emotional support, and education and conducting programs of regular exercises (Forbes et al., 2013). Interventions (cognitive and behavioral) can also be used to help the patients (Huntley et al., 2015).In the movie Age Old Friends (1989), a retirement home was shown where the protagonists of the movie were residents. The home had strict rules for its residents, and the surrounding was all strictly ordered. This deprived the residents of a sense of freedom, and self dignity. This was a major problem of approach in the treatment of dementia. Since the condition is mostly untreatable in advanced stages, it becomes necessary to allow the patientsto try to lead a normal life, providing all the help they need to perform their daily activities. The strict ordering however also had its positive effect of timely administration of medicines,
2TREATING DEMENTIAand participation in group activities. The spontaneity of the staff allowed timely action whenever needed, and prevented negligence due to complacency.Taking into considerations the complicated nature of dementia symptoms, and the lack of treatment for its advanced stages, care must be taken to ensure the patients have a decent quality of life, with a sense of normalcy. Generally treatment in restricted nursing homes can be very restrictive, and can therefore be stressful for the residents. The conventional facilities, even though properly equipped medically to deal with any medical/clinical symptoms, are however not as well equipped to deal with the psychological difficulties associated with dementia. The purpose of this article is to construct a design for a treatment facility for dementia that will ensure a life with meaning and quality for the patientssuffering from dementia.The primary objective of the facility will be to extend help and support to patients with advanced form of dementia. This is mostly because at advanced stage, the condition becomes untreatable, and the patients require round the clock assistance. This can be a hurdlein regular nursing homes, or homecare facilities, and be a major challenge to deal with for thefamily members (Holden & Stokes, 2017). The proposed facility will be a housing community for the patients of advanced dementia, and employ round the clock staffs (medical practitioners, advisors for healthy living, and social workers). The design of the facility will be based upon the Hogeweyk Village for dementia patients in Amsterdam, and will involve creating a living environment for the patients (Paola, 2017). The environment will act as a community, consisting of the patient and the care givers, and the complex can be set up as a small village with general stores, pubs, café-restaurant, movie theatres, salon, supermarket, town square, and recreation centers (Glass, 2014).
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