Chapter 16: Delirium and Dementia
Overview:
This chapter guides readers through how to:
- Differentiate between delirium and dementia
- Make a nursing assessment of delirium and dementia
- Manage care of those with dementia
Description:
Many older people living in residential care have significant cognitive impairment. Differentiating between dementia and delirium can be difficult and it is imperative that nurses identify the onset of change and documents clinical observations to ensure that appropriate and timely interventions occur. Discover how to identify cognitive deficits and to manage the resulting symptoms using the nursing process.
Topics:
- Introduction
- Differentiation between delirium and dementia
- Nursing assessment
- Find out what the person thinks the problem is
- Establish pre-morbid function and current function
- Understand the social and personal perspective
- Uncover the health history
- Identify the medication history
- Determine routines
- Establish level of sensory function
- Undertake cognitive and mental state assessments
- Establish cognitive patterns
- Validate the history provided
- Managing care
- Establishing cause
- A medical emergency
- Family and carers’ perspective
- Supportive interventions
- Conclusion
Speaker / Author:
Sandra Keppich-Arnold
Sandra is a registered psychiatric nurse with postgraduate qualifications in health education. She has been involved in community aged psychiatry for the past 15 years and has contributed to the establishment of a number of innovative community treatment and consultancy services aimed at improving outcomes for people with dementia and delirium. Sandra has been particularly interested in ensuring that nurses and others approach dementia care positively, and she has been actively involved in a number of action groups to highlight the issues pertinent to improved dementia management.
Sandra is an associate director of nursing and coordinator of the Mobile Aged Psychiatry Service at Caulfield General Medical Centre (Melbourne, Australia).
|
Resources 
