How Does Alzheimer's Disease Affect Family Members

Being a caregiver to someone with Alzheimer’s is a title and life one must occupy and fully commit themselves to. In the beginning stages of Jan’s diagnosis, Barry vowed to himself that no matter what, he would be with Jan every step of the way, until the very end of her life. He was patient with her and only wanted to be with her every second of every day. In his mind, Jan was going to beat the odds. He would maintain his role as her sole caregiver and together they would struggle through the disease.

In Tiana Peele’s “Alzheimer’s: The Forgotten Issue” published by the University of Delaware Peele attempts to raise awareness of the forgotten issue of Alzheimer’s. Undoubtedly, Peele is drawn to this subject at matter because her grandfather was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. This disease happens to be a form of Dementia and causes memory and intellectual abilities to deteriorate. Some of the early symptoms include short-term memory loss, and behavior changes. Furthermore, as one progresses into the later stages of this disease they become increasingly confused and become suspicious of loved ones.

The second article I reviewed was Dementia and Caregiver Stress: An Application of the Reconceptualized Uncertainty in Illness Theory. This is a qualitative study involving four focus groups with six-ten volunteer participants were held, each last approximately 90 minutes. 15 caregivers cared for their parents and the remainder cared for their spouses. Multiple themes (Antecedents) emerged from the interviews and were categorized by the five dimensions of uncertainty of illness. Four of the five themes causing uncertainty involved dementia related symptoms and included lack of personal boundaries, repetitive behavior, hygiene, verbal and physical aggressiveness, and need for constant care.

After a couple of appointments and a battery of tests were administered, Alice was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s. Her doctor requested that Alice starts bringing another person to her appointments with her as she may not have a complete understanding of her limitations. However, Alice fights the idea that she will soon lose control of her life and wants to hold on to her independence for as long as possible. In a moment of impulse, Alice tells her husband, John all the details of what has been happening to her and that she has Alzheimer’s.

This relationship is a special one as the families look forward to seeing their loved ones and they expect to see that the care staff have a good relationship with their loves ones. It is important that the care staff have a good relationship with a service users family, as the family trust them to take care of their family members and like to know how they are getting on and it is important to have open and honest conversations with them. Sometimes in a care setting with dementia, a service user can ignore or not recognise their family when they visit and this can be distressing for everyone, so a calming and reassuring relationship is definitely

Nurses in Complex Continuing Care Encountering Ethical Dilemmas of Autonomy and Wellbeing When Patient with Dementia Wants to go Home Bhakti Amin Student # A0622083 Professor S. Cairns NURS 2047 23 March 2018 Introduction Dementia continues to grow as a condition diagnosed among elderly females, researchers have hypothesized that this is due to longer female life expectancy (Podcasy & Epperson, 2016). Allowing a client with dementia to stay in their own can have several benefits such as joy, comfort, socially connected, maintain identity, and have meaning in life; however, in many cases, clients with dementia require complex continuous care (CCC) to support their health and wellness needs and the needs of their family (Lilly

This is more than just the financial resources that they have, but also their psychological and physical health and their spiritual outlook on life and the situation. One important factor is the caregiver's location and place of residence in relation to that of the person to be cared for. It must also be remembered that the carer has a life outside of this role and, therefore, important factors in caring include other day-to-day roles such as being an employee, a parent and a professional person. The carer is also affected by the opinions and demands of people outside the caregiving relationship. Caregivers are also facing a health care system that seems to be placing more responsibilities on caregivers while providing less and less

Communication Strategies Overview One of the many challenges posed by people suffering from dementia is communication. As this disease advances the brain begins to deteriorate by showing signs of lost memories, clear thought, and a lack of personal hygiene. In addition, mood swinges become evident stemming from the frustration of losing their ability to remember and communicate clearly with others. Other noticeable changes occur in the personality and behaviour patterns, such as a lower regard for personal hygiene.

She interviews eight different spouses and asked them a serious of questions such as the challenges they go through due to their spouse’s illness, and how they deal with the challenges individually (Habermann, 2000). Most of the spouses admitted to feeling empathy for their spouse because they hate seeing the love of their life in so much pain, and not being able to do anything about it makes them feel worse (Habermann, 2000). Many of the spouses also stated that they do not feel the same connection or closeness with their significant other because they are not able to perform the same daily activities together (Habermann, 2000). Self-concept in the healthy spouse is still intact when it comes to knowing who they are and having self-confidence, but it is also damaging because they too can lose their job in order to care give for their spouse with Parkinson’s (Habermann, 2000). The individual is also not able to perform his/her daily activities with their spouse and some cannot even sleep in the same bed due to side effects of the medications such as nightmares (Habermann, 2000).

Hillier and Barrow (2015), associate problems of caregiving with the responsibility itself, the caregivers personal health, role strains, strained family relationships, ect. With all of this strain on an informal caregiver it seems most beneficial to the caregiver and the elderly individual to consider admittance in to an assisted living facility. Once a basis has been established as to why an elderly person is admitted in to an assisted living facility, further insight shall be established to denote what is considered elder abuse. In this movie, Life and Death in Assisted Living Facilities, several

Care givers: caring for a family member or friend with a physical or mental illness can be stressful, exhausting, both mentally and physically, and creates a physical and psychological strain for the care giver over a period of time. The psychological well-being such as depression and stress, are frequent consequences of caregiving. The age, socioeconomic status, and the availability of informal support that caregivers have access to greatly affect their own health and well being. Caring for a family member with a mental illness can differ from caring for someone suffering from a physical illness. In addition to the medical care and long term treatment of a family member, an open and liberal view of mental illness is almost an essential in being able to care for someone who is ill.

The Long Island Alzheimer’s Foundation (LIAF) is a social model day program for individuals with Alzheimer’s disease and other related memory disorders to help improve their quality of life. LIAF is located in Port Washington, NY and offers services to treat individuals with early, moderate and late stage Alzheimer’s. The agency population is comprised of male and female participates with ages ranging from mid-fifties to late-nineties who all suffer from Alzheimer’s disease. LIAF biopsychosocial are done during a client’s initial intake and reviews are conducted quarterly by a Social Worker.

It is very important in your job role as health care assistant to know all the information about the individual take for example they wont know there children as adults they would only know them as children and even though there husband has died they still will think they are alive. You might get upset or frustrated in trying to explain to them there children are all grown up and that there husband died along time ago you have to patient it is important to use the right tone of and to role play along with service user in order to make them feel comfortable or remind them of what day and year .Sometimes it can be very difficult to get threw to an individual who has dementia. It is very important to always smile using eye contact greet them good morning how are you today the weather is really sunny

Kaakinen et al. (2015) states that approaching family as a client is centered on each individual family members well-being that create the sum of a family. An example of this approach is well demonstrated by my family’s primary care provider (PCP). My mother, father, sister, and I all routinely see the same primary care provider. Near the end of 2014 my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer, and in early 2015 my father was diagnosed with colon cancer.

According to Alzheimer’s in dementia caregiver Center there are 10 symptoms to detect stress and the caregiver. These symptoms are: denial, anger, social withdrawal, anxiety, depression, exertion, sleeplessness, irritability, lack of concentration, and health problems. (Caregiver Stress | Caregiver Center, n.d.) If not addressed these symptoms of stress can cause more problems for the caregiver then they anticipated. In the meeting, it was mentioned that there is a high percentage of caregivers die before the person they are caring for.