1.

Symptoms
Types of Dementia

Alzheimer’s disease Mild – confusion, irritability, forgetful, disorientation to time &

place
Moderate – memory loss, incontinent (bladder & bowel), slow
movement, hard to communicate, agitation
Severe – inability to speak or communicate, a sound will translate
into a word, seizures, unable to recognise others (past or future)
Vascular dementia or Memory loss
multi-infarct Blood loss – low blood flow
dementia Can lead to stroke
Post-stroke – confusion, disorientation, issues in speech, vision
loss
Lewy bodies Similar to Parkinson’s disease
Hallucinations, tremors
Excessive alcohol Confusion, loss of mental activities, lead to coma and death
intake or Korsakoff Loss of muscle coordination (ataxia), lead to tremors
Syndrome Vision issues, abnormal eye movement (nystagmus)
Cause by too much alcohol
Caused by Vitamin B1 (Thiamine) deficiency
Frontotemporal lobar Right and Left frontal lobe
degeneration (FLTD) Reduced IQ ability
including Pick’s Change in personality and ability and emotion
disease Right and Left Temporal Lobe
Affects hearing, understanding, hard time recognising objects,
difficulty in understanding questions and expressing language
Greatly affects the memory
Huntington’s disease Nerve disease which can lead to death
Onset – 30s to 40s (genetic)
Death of brain cells or neurons
Loss of speech, unable to swallow,
Parkinson’s disease Low dopamine level and the brain has inability to produce more
due to death of neurocells
Affects the central part of the brain = affects body movement,
sleep and memory dramatically
Younger onset Appears at an earlier stage in person’s life and still likely to be
dementia physically and socially active
Sense of loss in the person

Based from my previous assessments on dementia.

2.

Issues

Depression -there is certain changes in their perception and feelings

 -they tend to be socially isolated

- some may usually be saddened by what the family member with

dementia is going through especially if that person used to be
productive and workaholic

Loss and Grief -the feeling of losing meaning of their existence

-losing their personal identity

-they tend to think that the person affected with dementia is no

longer capable of doing anything

-they tend to lose their lifelong roles

Anger -they become physically aggressive

-tend to be resistive and coercive

-they are likely in denial of the situation

-they opt to avoid talking about the topic

-they may even question what and why is this happening to their
family member

Despair -they become hopeless or lonely

-the feeling of being frustrated and useless about themselves

-they have the feeling of being sad because of their family member
having dementia

-they become frustrated and helpless as they feel they cannot do

anything about it

Social Embarassment -they may become withdrawn and choose to exclude themselves
from other people or crowd

-the feeling of beingn ashamed of the circumstance

-the existing stigma of the society bothered them

Isolation -becomes frustrated

-they become lonely and sad

Financial Burden -they tend to become more angry and becomes more aggressive
whenever they remembers it.

Social Devaluation -they may become more depressed and emotional

Based on assessments
3. As a support worker, you are required to complete client care plans efficiently and with
the cooperation of the dementia clients. Reflect on how you can minimise the negative
psychological symptoms of dementia throughout the implementation of the care plans
and/or adjust the activities to suit the individual client’s needs:

- Consumer with dementia have different sources and have different behaviors and always
with different triggers and the reactions will be always not the same. When you are working
with this type of consumer you cannot lose you patience. Resilience is also a good
characteristic in working for consumers because whenever they was trigger with their
behavior words are coming to their mouth and you might not want it so have to understand
them. Most of the time they are disoriented the have poor judgement, resistive with ADL’s.

Being a personal care worker we should gain skills know how to reality orientation, always
reminds them with the date, time , relationship and occasions. Reassurance were works
accepting the values, beliefs and reality, empathy the you have to listen to the consumer to
provide a appropriate response and care. And accepting and embracing what the
consumer’s experiencing and not trying to challenge it. Help them to reminisce will help the
as well for their memories from the past.

4. How did you monitor your own stress levels and emotions when working with clients
who have dementia? How do these alter, particularly when clients present behaviours of
concern? Provide examples of appropriate self-care strategies and emotion management:

When I am working with the consumer who are really difficult and having some behavior is
will really drained me, and depends how severe it is or their behavior, but patience and
resilience is I develop working in a health care because you cant pleased everyone. Fatigue is
also a factor to get stress easily. So sometimes I have to stop and take a deep breath and sit
down for awhile and relax. When my mind is refresh and I will come back and try the other
strategies to overcome the behavior of the consumers.

5. Elder abuse often occurs in an Aged Care setting, as the client is at their most
vulnerable stage of their health. In the table below, reflect on how you interacted/would
interact with clients who were experiencing each type of abuse and identify how you
would investigate the issue.

Types of Abuse Action be taken by support Worker Reporting Method and Follow up
Documents to complete

Physical -observation when doing the Report to the RN’s Monitor the report
ADL’s if any bruises or any
body alterations Put it onto a Black
and with

Log it onto a
computer
documentation
 Sexual -look for any signs of abuse Report to the RN’s Monitor the report
sexual
Put it onto a Black
-if any inappropriate and with
gestures
Log it onto a
computer
documentation

Financial - observe for any hint like “I Report to the RN Monitor the report
do not have any money left”
Always write a
Or if a family or relatives Incident report
forcing the consumer to sign
any documents Logit onto a
computer for
documentation

Psychological -observe the consumer if she Talk to the consumer Observe the
is sad, crying and listen to him consumer more
often.
Report to the nurse

Log it onto the

documentation

6. Reflect on your experiences at placement, whereby family or friends of the client may
have been embarrassed by their behaviours (occurring as a symptom of dementia). Read
the example below and identify how you would act to address the embarrassment felt by
Elizabeth:

-being a woman and her father act like that she is really felt embarrassed she might
not know what to do during that time how she can reacts to her father’s behavior but I wont
advice her to stop her to take his father out for dinner she just needs to find another ways to
prevent it. She can just go for a taxi with her father or go with private car and go to a place
or restaurant that is not crowded.