Care
By Calvin Baitup
, Introduction
This information booklet is made for people who are going to work with the
elderly in a nursing home who may struggle with dementia. It will include
information for family members or friends of people who suffer with a type of
dementia. I have recently completed my course on dementia care and have
recently become a carer in a nursing home. Throughout this booklet I would like
to give out information that will be useful to staff, family member and friends and
give staff a basic understanding of the guidelines that need to be followed when
working with a dementia patient. Also, its purpose is to help family members and
friends to learn to work together and staff to make sure that the patient is
receiving the best company available and the best life that is available for them
with the services they have.
, Types of Dementia
There are six main types of dementia that have been discovered, the six main
types are:
Alzheimer's disease
Vascular dementia
Huntington’s disease
Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease
Lewy bodies dementia
Frontotemporal dementia (Pick’s disease)
All these types of dementia can be managed and slowed down but cannot be
reversed and will get gradually worse over time. Each dementia affects a
person differently to another for example two people could have Alzheimer's
disease but could develop different symptoms at different times. Also, it is
important to try and diagnose the dementia so that you can work out what
types of drugs the patient needs and how to treat the patient by
understanding their behaviour and the reason behind it.
(Queensland Brain Institute 2018)