NURS 6521 Week 6 Assignment - Decision Tree for Alzheimer’s Disease

Introduction. Summary of Case Study. Mr. Akkad a 76-year-old Iranian male was brought to the clinic for complaints of “strange behavior”. According to his son, this had been going on for about two years and had been getting progressively worse. With all laboratory and diagnostic imaging coming back normal, they brought him in for a psychiatric evaluation. On assessment, the patient scored an 18/30 on a mini-mental assessment and showed a tendency to confabulate. These, together with associated symptoms of forgetfulness, difficulty finding his words, change in personality, restrictive affect, disorientation to time, impaired judgment, insight, and impulse control led to a diagnosis of Major Cognitive Disorder due to Alzheimer’s Disease. The patient was started on Donepezil 5 mg daily to be given orally at bedtime. On the one-month follow-up visit, Son reported no improvement in the patient’s behavior. He scored the same on the mini-mental exam and Donezepil was increased to 10 mg PO nightly. The patient showed a slight improvement in behavior on the next follow-up visit but continued to show previous personality changes. I decided to continue the same dose of Donepezil 10mg nightly with a plan to initiate Memantine 5mg PO daily with any signs of physical decline.