This morning I had my first shift at a dementia care home I worked
8am-2pm. The work is more demanding and difficult that I expected and I’ve come
home very tired and worn out. It’s a very much on your feet job (as I expected)
and the residents have very high needs. I began with serving breakfast, each
resident has a different breakfast and you organise them on different trays
with their room number, it is essential to avoid foods, which many of the
residents are allergic too. These trays of food are taken to the rooms, unless
there are some early risers like today, in which case they eat their meal in
the dining hall. Along with the food, many have newspapers and magazine
requests on certain days, weekly or daily and so you have to take the right one
to them. After breakfast there is lots of clearing up, and repetitive emptying
and reloading of the dishwasher. During this time, you help in
dressing residents, and helping them move around their rooms or from their
rooms to the lounge. The most important thing is making sure the residents get
their individual medication, so there is a tick and sign sheet to check this is
completed. We accommodate all of the needs of the residents until lunch time, where we set and clear the tables. Some residents cannot eat, so today i fed a lady called Minnie her lunch, which we had to purify.
There are many different extents and type of dementia among the
residents.
The different types include:
Alzheimer’s disease: The cause is not easily understood, however it is
believed to be related to plaques or tangles in the brain which leads to death
of brain cells. It is also believed to be caused by a lack of chemicals in the
brain, which are involved in transporting messages. It is a disease that
progressively destroys memory, therefore they have less ability to communicate,
and another main symptom is mood swings.
Vascular Dementia: The symptoms are very similar to those of Alzheimer’s
disease, however they are more obvious such a problems with thinking and
concentration, depression, symptoms of a stoke, seizures and periods of acute
confusion. The main difference between the two is the cause; vascular dementia
is caused by a lack of blood supply to the brain. Therefore high blood
pressure, heart problems, high cholesterol and diabetes can increase the risk. Vascular
dementia branches into stroke dementia and sub-cortical vascular dementia.
Dementia with Lewy bodies: Occurs when lewy bodies (protein deposits found
in nerve cells) in the brain disrupt brain activity, by interrupting chemical
messengers including acetylcholine and dopamine (the reduction in dopamine is
the cause for Parkinson’s disease.) The symptoms are a mix of Alzheimer’s and
Parkinson’s disease; therefore they include memory and mental activity along
with slowness, muscle stiffness, trembling of limbs, a tendency to shuffle when
walking and a loss of facial expression.
Fronto-temporal dementia: This is includes many illnesses such as Pick’s
disease and frontal lobe degeneration. All these diseases are caused by damage
to the frontal and temporal lobe areas of the brain. This causes personality
and behaviour change, language difficulties and change in eating habits.
Rarer types include:
Progressive supranuclear palsy: Is due to the damage of brain cells, there
are deposits in brain tissue and a loss of tissue in brain and spinal cord. Many
different parts of the brain are damaged such as the frontal- lobe, so many of
the symptoms are the same as Fronto-temporal dementia. Other areas include
brainstem and the areas, which controls movement.
Corticobasal degeneration: Certain parts of the brain begin to shrink
due to damage over time to brain cells. The symptoms get progressively worse
over time, but to begin with symptoms include difficulty in controlling limbs
and ataxia (loss of balance and co-ordination.)
No comments:
Post a Comment