...Chapter I THE PROBLEM AND ITS BACKGROUND Introduction Depression is an illness that involves the body, mood, and thoughts, that affects the way a person eats and sleeps, the way one feels about oneself, and the way one thinks about things. A depressive disorder is not the same as a passing blue mood. It is not a sign of personal weakness or a condition that can be wished away. People with a depressive disease cannot merely "pull themselves together" and get better. Without treatment, symptoms can last for weeks, months, or years. Appropriate treatment, however, can help most people with depression (Dryden-Edwards, et. al., 2010). Animal-assisted therapy (AAT) is a relatively new field of study, although the human-animal bond has existed for thousands of years. AAT is a type of therapy that involves animals as a form of treatment. The goal of AAT is to improve a patient’s social, emotional, or cognitive functioning. Animals can also be useful for educational and motivational effectiveness for participants (American Humane Association, 2010). Animals are tools for therapy because they can make people feel safe and loved when they have been deprived of social interaction or hurt by other people. They do not communicate with words, and so patients afraid of approaching people can comfortably approach an animal. For the elderly, the companionship of owning a pet can be valuable, especially if they do not have any family or friends nearby to visit. The pet loves them i[n an...
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...an aging process. Mental illnesses in older adults include, but are not limited to: depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety, suicidal thoughts, substance abuse, dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. This paper will discuss the raising concern of mental health and aging, new treatment options, approaches to mental health in the elderly, and recent studies conducted on each of these critical and debilitating diseases. Depression is a very common, yet devastating disease originating from the brain. It can affect...
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...Steere House for a while now. Dr. Dosa wasn’t a believer of this phenomena until he talked with various nurses on his floor and families of deceased patients. He has developed an intense curiosity about the cat and is determined to find a logical explanation, although he knows he may never find one. Dr. Dosa is a character in his own book, which gives readers a whole new point of view on geriatrics and the lives of the elderly. His stories make you feel more empathetic toward the elderly, instead of judging them for something that’s completely out of their control. Dr. Dosa Dr. Dosa loves his job and can’t seem to understand why anyone would think otherwise. Most people think of geriatrics as being a depressing job because you’re surrounded by people who are either healthy or ill, but either way they’re going to die very soon. Usually a healthy senior will die of natural causes in their sleep, meanwhile, the unfortunate ones develop dementia and slowly deteriorate until it eventually takes their life. Most people have little to no understanding of dementia and, therefore, stereotype all old people...
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...BEL311 ENGLISH FOR ACADEMIC PURPOSES TERM PAPER ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE: NOT JUST A LOSS OF MEMORY Prepared by: XXXXXXXXX (matric no.) XXXXXXXXX (matric no.) Group XXX Prepared for: XXXXXXXXXXXX Date of Submission: July 2011 Introduction Alzheimer's disease, a neurodegenerative brain disease, is the most common cause of dementia. It currently afflicts about 4 million Americans and is the fourth leading cause of death in the United States. Furthermore, Alzheimer’s disease is the leading cause of mental impairment in elderly people and accounts for a large percentage of admissions to assisted living homes, nursing homes, and other long-term care facilities. Psychotic symptoms, such as delusions and hallucinations, have been reported in a large proportion of patients with this disease. In fact, it is the presence of these psychotic symptoms can lead to early institutionalization (Bassiony, et al, 2000). Learning about Alzheimer’s disease and realizing that it is much more that just a loss of memory can benefit the families of those with the disorder as well as society as a whole. This paper is to look at the disorder, as well as to discuss the history, symptoms, diagnosis, current researches and hopes of a cure for Alzheimer’s disease. History Around the turn of the century, two kinds of dementia were defined by Emil Kraepin: senile and presenile. The presenile form was described more in detail by Alois Alzheimer as a progressive deterioration...
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...Alzheimer’s Disease: Not Just Loss of Memory This is a 8 page, 10 resource paper discussing Alzheimer’s disease, discussing the history, symptoms, diagnosis and hopes for a cure of the disease. Alzheimer’s Disease: Not Just Loss of Memory Introduction Alzheimer's disease, a neurodegenerative brain disease, is the most common cause of dementia. It currently afflicts about 4 million Americans and is the fourth leading cause of death in the United States. Furthermore, Alzheimer’s disease is the leading cause of mental impairment in elderly people and accounts for a large percentage of admissions to assisted living homes, nursing homes, and other long-term care facilities. Psychotic symptoms, such as delusions and hallucinations, have been reported in a large proportion of patients with this disease. In fact, it is the presence of these psychotic symptoms can lead to early institutionalization (Bassiony, et all, 2000). Learning about Alzheimer’s disease and realizing that it is much more that just a loss of memory can benefit the families of those with the disorder as well as society as a whole. The purpose of this paper is to look at the disorder, as well as to discuss the history, symptoms, diagnosis and hopes of a cure for Alzheimer’s disease. History Around the turn of the century, two kinds of dementia were defined by Emil Kraepin: senile and presenile. The presenile form was described more in detail by Alois Alzheimer as a progressive deterioration of...
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...Alzheimer’s Disease: Not Just Loss of Memory Introduction Alzheimer's disease, a neurodegenerative brain disease, is the most common cause of dementia. It currently afflicts about 4 million Americans and is the fourth leading cause of death in the United States. Furthermore, Alzheimer’s disease is the leading cause of mental impairment in elderly people and accounts for a large percentage of admissions to assisted living homes, nursing homes, and other long-term care facilities. Psychotic symptoms, such as delusions and hallucinations, have been reported in a large proportion of patients with this disease. In fact, it is the presence of these psychotic symptoms can lead to early institutionalization (Bassiony, et all, 2000). Learning about Alzheimer’s disease and realizing that it is much more that just a loss of memory can benefit the families of those with the disorder as well as society as a whole. The purpose of this paper is to look at the disorder, as well as to discuss the history, symptoms, diagnosis and hopes of a cure for Alzheimer’s disease. History Around the turn of the century, two kinds of dementia were defined by Emil Kraepin: senile and presenile. The presenile form was described more in detail by Alois Alzheimer as a progressive deterioration of intellect, memory and orientation. As a neuropathologist, Alzheimer studied the case a 51 year-old woman. When she died, Alzheimer performed an autopsy and found that she had “cerebral atrophy”...
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...hand. There are several diseases that can be caused when a person does not control the level of stress they have in their life. An unhealthy lifestyle consists of stress, depression, eating high fat foods, and not exercising enough. The more a person knows about how to control their stress levels will help them to deal with some of the diseases that they might get and will also help them to live healthy to control the risk of getting any unhealthy diseases. In this paper I will strive to describe what the multifactorial model is and how it relates to the diagnosis of illnesses. I have also selected two health problems which I will explain what role psychology has played in understanding and managing these problems. The health problems that I have selected are coronary heart disease and menstrual problems. The multifactorial model is described as the belief that health and illnesses are a function of several factors that involve biological, psychological, and cultural domains, and how they interact with each other (Nevid & Rathus, 2005). People might wonder how some people become ill easily and some don’t, or maybe why some people are affected by health problems while others are not. According to the multifactorial model there isn’t one answer to why this happens. There are many factors that include genetics and lifestyle choices. Genes play a role in a person having a chance of getting certain diseases, but they do not guarantee that the disease will be passed down from...
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...public health research, and helps inform policy decisions and evidence-based by identifying risk factors for disease and targets for preventive medicine. Epidemiologists are involved in the design of studies, collection and statistical analysis of data, and interpretation and dissemination of results (including peer review and occasional systematic review).Major areas of epidemiological study include outbreak investigation, disease surveillance and biomonitoring, and comparisons of treatment effects such as in clinical trials. Epidemiologists rely on a number of other scientific disciplines such as biology (to better understand disease processes), biostatistics (to make efficient use of the data and draw appropriate conclusions), and exposure assessment and social science disciplines (to better understand proximate and distal risk factors, and their measurement). I would like to discuss elderly patients as my vulnerable population. There is no set age at which a person maybe under the care of a geriatric physician. The physician aims to promote health by preventing disease and disabilities in geriatric adults. A gerontologist specializes in the aging process. Adult medicine differs from the geriatric patient because the focus is on the elderly patient. The decline in physiological reserve in organs makes the elderly develop some kinds of diseases and have more complications from mild problems such as dehydration from the stomach flu, or confusion related...
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...symptoms for a specific illness. Nursing care of an older adult requires a through assessment of acute, chronic or complex illnesses. Illness in older adults is complicated by numerous medical problems and the physical changes of aging. Identification of an illness can be overlooked simply because symptoms might be reported vaguely. Multiple overlapping factors such as environmental, sociologic, physiologic and psychologic aspects need to be considered in the nursing assessment. It’s essential that nurses recognize atypical presentations of illness in older adults early to help improve patient care. Early detection can reduce the risk of missed diagnoses, death and/or prolonged hospitalization, and reduce rates of co-morbidity from treatable geriatric syndromes (GrayMiceli, 2007). Aging causes physiologic changes to the body. These normal age related changes could be similar to changes seen in the presence of pathological conditions. This causes a problem when normal changes mask early signs of an acute illness. Changes to the musculoskeletal system can affect a patient’s ability to function. Reduced bone mineral density leads to osteoporosis and an increased risk for fall-related fractures (Ebersole, Hess, Touhy, & Jett 2012, p. 48-49). Age related changes to the cardiovascular system are myocardial and blood vessel stiffening, decreased beta-adrenoceptor responsiveness, impaired autonomic reflex control of the heart rate, left ventricular hypertrophy, and fibrosis (Ebersole et al....
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...opportunity to have insurance coverage. This leads to an additional 32 million people that will be seen in health care facilities across the United States. In October 2010, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) developed a report depicting the need for nursing to be transformed in the areas of practice, education and leadership to meet the changing health care needs. This will enhance quality, promote health, prevent illness, and care for people of all ages and ethnicities. Nurses are at the core of this change. They reside at the bedside and have an opportunity to make great changes and take on new opportunities to provide a seamless transition throughout this growth spurt. Education Nursing educations at all levels needs to provide a better understanding of and experiences in care management, quality improvement methods, system change management and re-conceptualized roles of nurses in a reformed health care system (IOM, 2010). With the diploma, ADN, and BSN avenues to becoming a registered nurse there are many different options for those desiring to enter the nursing field. The BSN will become a necessity and even more needed are nurse practitioners and those with doctorates. The future of nursing is to continuously pursue further education. Health care facilities should encourage their employees and be supportive in furthering education. Nurses should consider how the health care system is likely to evolve, take a look at their career goals, and then identify what they need to do to...
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...The department has also established Model day care programs that work with MDC’s to provide day care where the patients can meet and socialize with others and also receive training to improve and maintain their cognitive thinking. Respite services are another initiative by the ADI that includes in-house, facility based, emergency and extended care respite usually up to 30days given for care givers of this disease. Florida has established respite care programs in all of its 67 counties. Alzheimer’s disease progresses in three stages – early stage or mild, moderate or middle stage and severe or late stage. After the first diagnosis of this disease by their primary care physicians, patients are usually referred to further tests and are treated...
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...Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, Iowa, USA Despite the prevalence of the disease, it appears that there may be a need for increased education for formal and family caregivers of those with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias. Today’s college students will be asked to fill both of these roles in the future. This study examined the level of knowledge of Alzheimer’s disease among college students. Two-hundred college students at a mid-sized midwestern university completed an online survey that included the Alzheimer’s Disease Knowledge Scale (Carpenter et al., 2009). Although most participants knew that people with Alzheimer’s remember things from the distant past better than more recent events, many college students were unfamiliar with risk factors and average life expectancy. Implications and recommendations for educational programs and curriculum are discussed. Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias are significant health concerns affecting our older adult population (Sullivan & Muscat, 2007). As our population continues to age and our demography shifts to higher proportions of elders, the number of individuals diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and dementia continues to increase. Although the causes of dementia are numerous, Alzheimer’s disease, which is irreversible and ultimately fatal, is the most common cause of dementia. About 70% of dementias in the United States are caused by Alzheimer’s disease (Brookmeyer, Evans, Hebert, Langa, & Herringa, 2011). This percentage...
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...Nursing is a dynamic profession and life long learning is essential for nurses to stay current with the increased complexity of the healthcare needs of today and into the future.In other words, the needs of our patients are changing, as we must change in order to be prepared to better serve that need. Nursing has a long history of formal education which moved out of hospitals and into colleges and universities early last century. The associate degree level of nursing was developed out of a need to produce nurses in response to a shortage during and following World War II. It was a proposed as a temporary solution to a shortage to a shortage but was not intended to replace the professional level of nursing education. The ADN program require about 2 yrs for the student to complete. The Adn nurses are associate degree in nursing, ADN nurses have clinical skills and hands on basic skills but they lack both management and leadership skills with in the nursing field. Additionally they lack research skills used in nursing as well as knowledge on informatics the use of technological advances in enhancing quality medical delivery. ADN gives you the fundamentals of nursing practices. They basic theory, skills, competencies knowledge of scope of practice and legalities for licensure and the essential general education core that is necessary as a foundation [English, psychology, biology chemistry, anatomy and physiology , etc].it gives you the bare minimum knowledge required...
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...a Patient with Vascular Dementia Grand Canyon University Case Study: Treating a Patient with Vascular Dementia Vascular dementia is one of the most common causes of dementia, Alzheimer being the most common. Vascular dementia causes around 10% of cases while Alzheimer causes around an estimate of 60% to 80% of cases. NHS Choice (2015) defines dementia as “a loss of mental ability (cognitive impairment) associated with gradual death of brain cells” (para. 2). Vascular dementia occurs when the blood flow to the brain is reduced and usually happens from strokes, it also can be caused by a variety of diseases and damages that affects the brain. One of the most common type of vascular dementia is the Multi-infarct dementia which is caused by minor strokes or (which sometimes are called “mini strokes” or silent strokes”) that at times could go unnoticed. Unlike Alzheimer's disease, there are no licensed treatments for vascular dementia (O’Brien and Thomas, 2015) Multi-infarct dementia is more common in older men than women around the ages of 60 to 75 years old. Vascular dementia is really rare in anyone younger than 65. Global, 48.5 million people have dementia, about 70% of that is Alzheimer’s and around 10% are vascular dementia, there are 7.7 million new cases every year. This case study looks further into Vascular Dementia and the people who have them and shows how a great care system and collaboration can help the patient. A case study will be conducted for the patient while...
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...Alzheimer’s: A Team-Based Approach to Health Care Susan Medhurst Grand Canyon University: HCA 515 10/5/2013 Unfortunately, there is no single form of identifying test that can tell you if you have Alzheimer’s or if you are just forgetful. For those patients dealing with other illnesses like thyroid problems, depression and other health problems, memory loss is a very common side effect to their illness, which makes identifying Alzheimer’s even more difficult (Alzheimer’s association, 2013). This disease often goes unnoticed until the patient has reached a moderate to advanced stage because of the commonality of the indicators in early stages such as forgetfulness of where you put your car keys (Alzheimer’s association, 2013). Currently over five-million American’s have Alzheimer’s. This number will begin to increase as the baby boomers age and life expectancy is extended. The risk of getting Alzheimer’s only increases as we age with number of people doubling every 5-year interval beyond the age of 65 (Alzheimer’s association, 2013). Case Study Eaton, a 72 year old male patient, was found roaming downtown Denver with no recollection of how he got there. Paramedics brought him to the hospital for evaluation. The patient presents with progressive memory loss, confusion, agitation, and doesn’t know his last name. Identification in his wallet helped the hospital staff contact his wife. Upon the wife’s arrival, the patient seemed distant and unable to identify his wife Ethel...
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