Reflection on Healthcare Professionals and Dementia Care

This assignment presents a student's reflective analysis of the challenges faced by healthcare professionals in dementia care, drawing upon the 5 R's of reflection: Reporting, Responding, Relating, Reasoning, and Reconstructing. The paper begins with an introduction highlighting the importance of addressing the unique needs of dementia patients and the difficulties healthcare professionals encounter in maintaining patient dignity. The student reflects on an article discussing staff experiences in acute settings, noting issues like lack of appropriate environments, inadequate education, and staffing shortages. The reflection delves into emotional responses, relating personal and theoretical understandings to the challenges of managing aggressive patients, ethical dilemmas, and the potential for stereotyping. Reasoning explores institutional and individual factors contributing to these challenges, emphasizing the need for person-centered care and improved training. The paper concludes with a reconstruction phase, proposing future actions like advocating for patients and seeking further professional development to prevent stigmatization and enhance the quality of care for dementia patients. The student references multiple research papers to support their points, and the reflection highlights the need for skill development and patient-centered approaches to improve outcomes and prevent the stigmatization of dementia patients.

Running head: REFLECTION
Reflection
Name of the student:
Name of the University:
Author’s note

1REFLECTION
Introduction
Patients with diverse illness present with unique symptoms and issues and health care
professionals have the duty to adequately respond to their unique needs and maintain dignity
during care too. However, health care professional’s experience regarding caring for dementia
patient shows that they struggle to meet the needs of dementia patient and maintain dignity of
patients. This paper provides a reflection on the experience of the issues and future plans to
resolve the issue in professional practice.
Reporting
The article by Houghton et al. (2016) gave idea about the health care staff’s experience of
caring for people with dementia in the acute setting. In response to caring for dementia patient,
the staffs reported that providing care to dementia was difficult because of lack of appropriate
environment for care, poor emphasis on education and low staffing levels. In busy and stressful
environment, the capacity of staffs to provide appropriate care was found to be low. Boltz et al.
(2015) supports that hospitalized patients with dementia have special needs and health care
workers need specific knowledge related to nutrition, agitation, pain, hygiene, communication
and spiritual care to improve health of such patients.
Responding
After looking at the experience of staffs regarding dementia care, I feel distressed by the
situation of the health care professionals. As the dementia patient gets very aggressive
sometimes, I understand how difficult it must be for clinicians or nurse to manage aggressive
patient as well as balance the values of dignity and respect. I observed from one of the response
that restraint was commonly used by staffs to control challenging behavior of such patient. I

2REFLECTION
agree why use of restraint is justified in terms of staff and patient safety as I might also use the
same strategy when I don’t have the skills to manage such patients.
Relating
The incidence as mentioned by staffs in the Houghton et al. (2016) shows that care for
patient with dementia creates many professional and ethical challenges for staffs. As I also don’t
have specialized skills to deal with aggressive patients, I relate to the experience of burden
expressed by the staffs. It must be ethically challenging for staffs too as in normal encounters,
staff do not have to deal with aggressive patients. This challenge is seen for dementia patients
only as they have complex symptoms. In additions, the staff’s experience gave me the idea that
staffs often unknowingly stereotyped patients. However, this was not deliberate because staff’s
lack of knowledge and training prevented them from interpreting the reason behind dementia
person’s confusion. More effective care pathways can be developed if staffs have knowledge
regarding pathologies and appropriate assessment for dementia patients (Surr et al., 2016).
Reasoning
From the health care staff’s perspective regarding challenges in care of dementia patient,
I feel that both institutional and individualized factors play a role in creating confusion, burden
and challenges for health care workers caring for dementia patients. Surr et al. (2017) gives the
evidence that informed and effective dementia workforce is an international concern as many
care quality concerns has been raised. Another reason behind such challenge was lack of person-
centered approach to care as nurses reported not getting the opportunity to sit down with patients
and predict the reason behind their complex behavior (Houghton et al., 2016). Hence,
reexamining the care environment might help to engage in patient centered care.

3REFLECTION
Reconstructing
On reflecting on the perspective of health care professional’s regarding delivering care to
dementia patient, I would conclude that both poor education and training and barriers to patient-
centered care comprise patient safety and dignity outcomes of dementia patient. This implied that
appropriate skill development and understanding complex needs of dementia patient is necessary
to provide ethically safe care. During my professional career, I will have to care for dementia
patients. To ensure minimum risk and challenges during care, my future plan is to act as
advocates for dementia patient and taking efforts to prevent labeling and stigmatization in the
acute setting. This is important because experience of stigma prevents patients from
acknowledging their symptoms and enjoying highest quality of life (Riley, Burgener &
Buckwalter, 2014). I aim to achieve this by taking continued professional training in the areas of
dementia care.
Conclusion:
To conclude, the reflection gave the idea that health care professionals have negative
experience related to caring for dementia patients because of poor education and knowledge
regarding responding to complex behavior of dementia patients. Hence, skill development and
patient-centered approach is suggested to improve outcomes and prevent stigmatization of
patients.

4REFLECTION
References:
Boltz, M., Chippendale, T., Resnick, B., & Galvin, J. E. (2015). Anxiety in family caregivers of
hospitalized persons with dementia: contributing factors and responses. Alzheimer
disease and associated disorders, 29(3), 236.
Houghton, C., Murphy, K., Brooker, D., & Casey, D. (2016). Healthcare staffs’ experiences and
perceptions of caring for people with dementia in the acute setting: Qualitative evidence
synthesis. International Journal of Nursing Studies, 61, 104-116.
Riley, R. J., Burgener, S., & Buckwalter, K. C. (2014). Anxiety and stigma in dementia: a threat
to aging in place. Nursing Clinics, 49(2), 213-231.
Surr, C. A., Gates, C., Irving, D., Oyebode, J., Smith, S. J., Parveen, S., ... & Dennison, A.
(2017). Effective dementia education and training for the health and social care
workforce: a systematic review of the literature. Review of educational research, 87(5),
966-1002.
Surr, C. A., Smith, S. J., Crossland, J., & Robins, J. (2016). Impact of a person-centred dementia
care training programme on hospital staff attitudes, role efficacy and perceptions of
caring for people with dementia: A repeated measures study. International journal of
nursing studies, 53, 144-151.