Dementia Patient Risks in Aged Care: Falls, Dysphagia, and Healthcare

This report focuses on the risks faced by dementia patients in aged care settings. It highlights accidental falls as a major concern, emphasizing the increased vulnerability of older adults with dementia. The report discusses the causes of falls, including balance issues, gait problems, psychological factors, medication side effects, vision problems, and joint pain. It outlines the role of aged care settings in fall prevention, such as implementing skid-resistant floors, using assistive devices like walkers, and ensuring proper lighting. The report also addresses dysphagia, or difficulty swallowing, in dementia patients, explaining its causes and interventions like diet modifications and assisted feeding. Primary healthcare interventions and screening, including vital sign management and behavioral assessments, are also discussed. Finally, the report emphasizes the importance of healthy aging education for both patients and their families. The conclusion summarizes the key risks and the benefits of aged care facilities in improving the quality of life for individuals with dementia.

RISKS ASSOCIATED WITH DEMENTIA
PATIENT IN AGED CARE
P R E S E N T E D B Y :

Accidental Fall among Older adults
with Dementia
 Fall among the older adults are complex
yet multi-factorial issue
 Older adults with dementia are 5 times
more vulnerable in encountering
accidental fall in comparison to older
adults without dementia
 Accidental fall results in the
development of hip, knee spine or skull
injury
(Fernando et al. 2017)

Reasons for Accidental Fall
 The causes of accidental fall include:
 Improper body balance
 Gait
 Psychological factors
 Side-effects of medications
 Vision problems
 Pain in joints
(Meuleners et al. 2016)

Role of Aged Care Settings in
prevention of fall
 Formation of skid resistance floor or use of
traction proof shoes to reduce fall arising from
improper body balance
 Installation of side rails in bed or use of walkers
or wheel chairs are also employed to reduce
accidental fall due to gait
 The interior is made with minimal furniture and
proper lightening for fight vision impairment and
fall
 Personal assistance
 (Petersen et al. 2018)

Fall Risk Assessment
Fall risk assessment is an important
job role of the professionals under
aged care setting. This helps to
improve the level of patients’ safety
and reduction in the chances of
accidental fall

Dementia and Dysphagia
 Dysphagia means difficulty in swallowing
 Progressive neuro-degeneration hampers motor and
sensory difficulties leading to difficulty in chewing and
swallowing
 Interventions
 Assistance in taking food : manual assistance, use of
non-spill cups, lipped or high sided plates and adapted
cutlery sets
 Diet modifications like serving finger foods, making
modifications in textures of food and serving food with
liquid viscocity
(Payne and Morley 2018)

Interventions of
Dysphagia
 Other interventions
 Reducing distractions, restricting
background noise, creating routines for
meal time (Payne and Morley 2018)
 Modifying bolus size or implementing a
chin tuck strategy is also effective for
treating dysphagia
 In extreme cases or during the end
stage of dementia Enteral or tube
feeding is considered
 (Hines, Kynoch and Munday 2016)

Primary health care and
screening
 Aged care settings also provides primary
healthcare screening, diagnosis and
implementation of interventions
 Primary healthcare interventions help to
reduce the chances of unwanted hospital
admissions
 The primary health care check up includes
management of vital signs including
Glasgow coma scale and noting not BMI,
body weight, eye sight and gait.
 Mini-mental state examination is
conducted in order to track the behavioral
change (Creavin et al. 2016)

Healthy aging
 The role of the nursing healthcare
professionals under the aged care
settings also include education of
the older adults about the concept
of healthy aging
 The education is give along with
the family members
 Proper education and disease
adherence helps to improve the
quality of life of older adults with
dementia and also increases the
use of the healthy lifestyle
interventions (Yang et al. 2017)

Conclusion
 Thus from the above discussion it can be
concluded that patients of dementia suffers fro
 Accidental fall
 Dysphagia
 Other health related comorbidities
 Staying under the aged care facility helps to
improve the quality of life of the older adults
with dementia and reducing the severity of the
diease

References
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