Nursing Interventions Rationale
Assess patient for reversible or irreversible dementia, causes, ability to interpret environment, intellectual thought processes, memory loss, disturbances with orientation, behavior, and socialization. Determines type and extent of dementia to establish a plan of care to enhance cognition and emotional functioning at optimal levels.
Utilize cognitive function testing. Identifies current level of dementia.
Maintain consistent scheduling with allowances for patient’s specific needs, and avoid frustrating situations and overstimulation. Prevents patient agitation, erratic behaviors, and combative reactions. Scheduling may need revision to show respect for the patient’s sense of worth and to facilitate completion of tasks.
Avoid or terminate emotionally charged situations or conversations. Avoid anger and expectation of patient to remember or follow instructions. Do not expect more than the patient is capable of doing. Catastrophic emotional response are prompted by task failure when the patient feels expected to perform beyond ability and becomes frustrated and angry. Responding calmly to the patient validates feeling and causes less stress.
Provide time for reminiscing if patient so desires. Allows for memory of past pleasant events. Patient may be reliving events in the past and the caregiver should identify this behavior and respect it.
Limit sensory stimuli and independent decision-making. Decreases frustration and distractions from environment. Decreasing stress of making a choice helps to promote security.
Assist with establishing cues and reminders for patient’s assistance. Assists patients with early AD to remember location of articles and facilitates some orientation.
Identify family members and/or support systems for the patient. Helps to determine appropriate person to notify for changes, to assist with care, and someone familiar to patient to help deal with his confusion.
Ask family members about their ability to provide care for patient. Identifies family’s need for assistance.
Instruct family and provide them with information regarding community services and long-term health care facilities. Patient may require ongoing skilled nursing care that the patient’s family is unable or unwilling to provide.
Instruct family regarding avoidance of arguing with patient about what he thinks, sees, or hears. Patient may have delusions and hallucinations, that are real to the patient, and no amount of persuasion will convince him or her otherwise. The patient may become agitated or violent if contradicted.
Instruct family to consider if what patient believes has some basis in reality. Sometimes portions of conversations can be heard and misinterpreted by the patient.
Instruct family to consider if what patient believes has some basis in reality from previous years ago. Patient may be reliving times in the past and the reality may be decades ago.
Instruct family to avoid having patient watch violent TV shows. Patient cannot make distinction of reality from fiction, and witnessing violent acts on the screen may be frightening to the patient.
Instruct family to utilize distraction techniques, such as soothing music, going for a walk, or looking at picture albums if patient has delusions. Distraction may be effective to calm patient if stressful situations occur.