Human body has complex physiological mechanisms that keep the vital functions in a well orchestrated manner. Depending on the needs of the body, a precise balance of essential internal communications, pathways or networks and secretions is maintained. A deviation from the normal state due to genetically, biochemical and environmental effects could negatively impact the integrated body machinery. In addition, the impact of age could also become additive in precipitating the ill effects. Age is the most important factor that determines the severity of a given condition. A precise management of such condition is possible only through appropriate investigations. The present description is concerned with highlighting about “Alzheimer’s Disease”.
Briefly, Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a brain disorder and the most frequent form of dementia among elderly. Dementia is a brain abnormality that severely impairs an individual’s potential to perform the routine activities. This condition initiates slowly. In the beginning, it includes the brain regions that regulate thinking, memory and language. Individuals with AD could encounter problems while remembering things that occurred in the recent past or known familiar names. An associated condition, mild cognitive impairment (MCI), contributes to more severe memory problems compared to the individuals of similar age. Majority of individuals with MCI acquire AD.
Problems identification:
Alzheimer’s disease is an increasing public health threat. The number of individuals who are diagnosed with Alzheimer’s keeps increasing as the years pass. The reason is population aging. Researchers recently described that the current projections of AD would triple by the year 2050. Inadequate funding on novel pharmaceutical interventions and thier unimpressive outcomes also appear to contribute to the problem. According to a report of Alzheimer’s Research & Therapy, almost all drug trials did not succeed. In the last ten years, no single novel drug has yielded promising benefits. The study also adds that the interventions on AD therapeutics were not actively undertaken as per the update from the Clinicaltrials.gov database. The progress in trials from one phase to the other is slow. Also, the number of compounds reaching the regulatory review is very minimum compared to other disorder’ therapeutic drugs (99% of Alzheimer's drugresearch fails, n.d.).
Present estimates reveal that nearly 35.6 million people are living with dementia, globally.
The affect of Dementia is simply not only on people but also it is capable of affecting and altering the lives of families. Dementia is a financial burden in its social, economic, and health context. Approximately, 60 percent of dementia burden is in low- and middle-income nations and this is likely to escalate in the near future. The requirement for long-term care for individuals with dementia is a problematic issue for health and social systems, and financial departments.
This problem could turn into a catastrophic situation where millions of households could lose wealth and fall below the poverty. The immense proportion of people whose lives are impaired by dementia in association with severe financial burden on families and countries makes AD led dementia a deep public health area of priority.
Statistics mention an estimate of four million dementia affected people in the US. In North America and Europe, AD is the most frequent contributor of dementia.
Nearly, 10% of individuals over the age 70 years possess memory loss and more than half of them have AD. In individuals aged above 85 years, dementia is estimated to occur at 25%-45%.
The incidence of AD increases from 2.8 per 1,000 person years in age group of 65-69 years age group to 56.1 per 1,000 person years in individuals who are above 90 years.
For a an evidence based literature search, a PICO question appears mandatory . PICO stands for P- Patient, Problems or population, I- Intervetnion, C-control, comparison and O- outcomes.
Nursing issues relate to AD:
The profession of nursing plays vital role in the care process of AD. However, there are certain pitfalls in this area with regard to nurse’s knowledge and their mode of communication with the patients.
Researcher supports that clinical experiences of nurses about the awareness and attitudes in terms of caring for patients with AD is very central. But, the complex situations encountered during such care in association with certain preexisting ageist attitudes could contribute to
a negative experience in nurses during their practice. Negative attitudes that surround AD care process could compromise the ideal care or provides a care of inferior quality.
Especially, nurses have negative attitudes towards older individuals with AD at a much higher degree than towards the elderly of general population (Saini, Alagh & Carpenter, 2012).
Studies on the nurses’, for instance nursing students’, attitudes towards AD patients reveal that
such students encounter emotional disturbances such as fear, sadness, frustration, and empathy
The awareness and attitudes of nurse supervisors toward the AD care of patients in not only vital for the patients but also for the overall learning process of nursing students in the care delivery.
So, nursing professors could play a key role in motivating the young nursing graduates and thus could influence the attitudes and practices of staff nurses and community health nurses in various urban and rural settings.
Researchers have devised a standardized AD knowledge scale (ADKS) with the goal of assessing the nurse’s attitudes and promoting a change in this area.They recruited 75 nursing students. The findings reveal 71 % of nursing teachers scored of 50-80% on ADKS indicating an average knowledge. On the other hand, 26.7% of nursing teachers scores below 50% (below average) and only 3 % had good awareness with scores above 80% (Saini, Alagh & Carpenter, 2012).
Here, nurses’ demographic characteristics such as relevant educational background, nursing related highest qualification, age, work experience have no association with AD awareness.
It appears that more education is essential to assist nurses in understanding the condition.
So, imparting proper education and sensitizing the nursing teachers about AD would contribute development of positive attitudes and significantly helpful practices by student nurses toward the care of elderly. The outcome would be more on reducing the increasing cases of elderly patient neglect and abuse in the society. In addition, with growing demands of the society, health care policy makers should emphasize on the training approaches for nurse academicians about AD (Saini, Alagh & Carpenter, 2012). Next, AD patient care requires great communication strategies among the nursing professionals. The reason is that an improper communication with impaired residents could lead to feelings of meaning less and hopelessness. So, an precise communication with severely demented patients could minimize the experiences of meaninglessness when caring for elderly with dementia.
Recommendations for the caregiver are simplifying the sentence and vocabulary form, preventing the use of abstract content or pronouns, retarding the rate of speech, using a closed-ended question and maintaining a pleasant tone of voice (Tappen et al. 1997).
References
99% of Alzheimer's drugresearch fails (n.d.).
Retrieved from <http://www.fuelforthought.co/99-alzheimers-drug-research-fails/
http://www.ceoalzheimersinitiative.org/why-alzheimers
