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Alzheimer’s Disease Assessment (Early Symptoms) (Picmonic)
5 A’s of Alzheimer’s Disease (Picmonic)
Alzheimer’s Disease Pathochart (Cheat Sheet)
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Example Nursing Diagnosis for Alzheimer’s Disease
- Impaired Memory: Alzheimer's disease is characterized by memory loss. This diagnosis addresses the cognitive impairment related to memory.
- Risk for Falls: Alzheimer's patients are at risk of falls due to impaired cognition and mobility. This diagnosis emphasizes fall prevention.
- Impaired Communication: Alzheimer's may affect communication abilities. This diagnosis focuses on facilitating effective communication strategies.
Transcript
Hey guys, in this care plan, we will explore Alzheimer's disease.
So, in this Alzheimer's disease care plan, we're going to cover the desired outcome, the subjective and objective data along with the nursing interventions and rationales.
So, our medical diagnosis is Alzheimer's disease. Alzheimer's disease is an irreversible neurological disorder where there's decreased acetylcholine in the brain causing microscopic plaques and the destruction of neurons, the patient experiences a loss of memory and cognitive dysfunction. The exact cause is unknown, but it's thought to be a combination of genetic, environmental and lifestyle factors along with aging.
So, our desired outcome is that the patient will remain at the optimal level of independence or assisted functioning, remain free from injury and have adequate resources and support. Now, let's take a look at our care plan. So, the patient with Alzheimer's disease is going to experience some poor short-term memory.
Um, this usually happens before long-term memory loss and causes things like forgetting what they ate for lunch, Um, and this is due to the changes in the brain. The patient will eventually experience poor long-term memory, where they can't remember, for example, childhood memories. And again, that's because of the changes in the brain. They will also start to experience increased confusion in the evenings, and at night. This is often called "sundowning" and it's really hard on them. They get really confused and they might actually be fine during the day, and then all of a sudden at night, it's like a switch is flipped and they completely change.
Now let's look at the objective data. So, you're going to start to notice personality changes and family will as well. Normally this might be a sweet, sweet, old lady and then now, she's all of a sudden, very angry, frustrated and doesn't know what's going on. You know, it's very hard. Um, you might notice some inappropriate behaviors that they usually don't have such as being combative. You might notice difficulty with ADL's, getting around, and this is all because of those changes in the brain structure. The patient eventually is going to have a really hard time with, um, trying to control their bladder and bowels, which is why often we can use depends to help with that.
Now let's look at our nursing interventions and the rationales. So, you will perform a complete assessment of the patient, assess the baseline and monitor the disease progression. Regularly, assess their neurological status and their mental status, because this is not easy on them.
Something to think about is checking out their nutritional status. Just to make sure they're eating because sometimes they forget. I mean, they're very forgetful and, um, it can be hard for them to remember to eat or even just drink a glass of water.
You want to practice effective communication. This is so, so important. This is going to help you to increase that patient/ nurse understanding. Um, you know, it can be very frustrating, um, when they feel like they're trying to tell you something, but they can't get it across. You know, they can't remember everything. Just try to listen. That's the best thing I can say, listen to what they're saying to you. Let them express their anger and frustrations. Even if it doesn't seem important to you, you might then be able to redirect them to what you need them to do at that time. This can help them to feel as though you care about them and what they need next. You want to make sure that you assist with ADL's and limit choices for independent decisions, according to disease progression to minimize hazards. So our number one goal is we want to keep them safe, right?
So try to reduce frustration. You don't want them to get frustrated or angry. Reduce their stress. And also this is going to help incorporate a sense of accomplishment for the patient. They can feel like they're actually able to do things for themselves next. You want to make sure you reorient your patient often. There's a lot of times they're going to just feel confused. They might say something silly like, oh, um, you know, I’ve got to go talk to my mom. They might think they're back into childhood again. So just redirect them, just reorient them to what's going on right now, help them feel safe, you know, help promote awareness in themselves and their environment. It's really helpful. Also, when you enter the room, just say who you are and why you're there. Next, you want to provide structured and guided activities while maintaining a schedule and routine to try to keep things normal.
This is going to help the patient maintain awareness and offer a sense of security. So, you'll want to educate the patient's family about the disease. This is going to help that family to cope. This is really hard on them you guys, really hard. Their family member is changing right in front of their eyes. So, you want to help them cope. You want to help prepare them for changes and adapt to the needs of the patient.
Lastly, you want to make sure you administer medications as ordered guys. We can't reverse this disease at this point in time, we don't have that ability with medications, but we can stop it from progressing as much as we can with medications, right? Um, so medications are going to help to manage that memory loss and hopefully delay the progression of the disease. There's other meds as well that we might need to use to treat behavior such as agitation, combativeness, things like that and symptoms.
We love you guys! Now go out and be your best self today. And as always, happy nursing!
So, in this Alzheimer's disease care plan, we're going to cover the desired outcome, the subjective and objective data along with the nursing interventions and rationales.
So, our medical diagnosis is Alzheimer's disease. Alzheimer's disease is an irreversible neurological disorder where there's decreased acetylcholine in the brain causing microscopic plaques and the destruction of neurons, the patient experiences a loss of memory and cognitive dysfunction. The exact cause is unknown, but it's thought to be a combination of genetic, environmental and lifestyle factors along with aging.
So, our desired outcome is that the patient will remain at the optimal level of independence or assisted functioning, remain free from injury and have adequate resources and support. Now, let's take a look at our care plan. So, the patient with Alzheimer's disease is going to experience some poor short-term memory.
Um, this usually happens before long-term memory loss and causes things like forgetting what they ate for lunch, Um, and this is due to the changes in the brain. The patient will eventually experience poor long-term memory, where they can't remember, for example, childhood memories. And again, that's because of the changes in the brain. They will also start to experience increased confusion in the evenings, and at night. This is often called "sundowning" and it's really hard on them. They get really confused and they might actually be fine during the day, and then all of a sudden at night, it's like a switch is flipped and they completely change.
Now let's look at the objective data. So, you're going to start to notice personality changes and family will as well. Normally this might be a sweet, sweet, old lady and then now, she's all of a sudden, very angry, frustrated and doesn't know what's going on. You know, it's very hard. Um, you might notice some inappropriate behaviors that they usually don't have such as being combative. You might notice difficulty with ADL's, getting around, and this is all because of those changes in the brain structure. The patient eventually is going to have a really hard time with, um, trying to control their bladder and bowels, which is why often we can use depends to help with that.
Now let's look at our nursing interventions and the rationales. So, you will perform a complete assessment of the patient, assess the baseline and monitor the disease progression. Regularly, assess their neurological status and their mental status, because this is not easy on them.
Something to think about is checking out their nutritional status. Just to make sure they're eating because sometimes they forget. I mean, they're very forgetful and, um, it can be hard for them to remember to eat or even just drink a glass of water.
You want to practice effective communication. This is so, so important. This is going to help you to increase that patient/ nurse understanding. Um, you know, it can be very frustrating, um, when they feel like they're trying to tell you something, but they can't get it across. You know, they can't remember everything. Just try to listen. That's the best thing I can say, listen to what they're saying to you. Let them express their anger and frustrations. Even if it doesn't seem important to you, you might then be able to redirect them to what you need them to do at that time. This can help them to feel as though you care about them and what they need next. You want to make sure that you assist with ADL's and limit choices for independent decisions, according to disease progression to minimize hazards. So our number one goal is we want to keep them safe, right?
So try to reduce frustration. You don't want them to get frustrated or angry. Reduce their stress. And also this is going to help incorporate a sense of accomplishment for the patient. They can feel like they're actually able to do things for themselves next. You want to make sure you reorient your patient often. There's a lot of times they're going to just feel confused. They might say something silly like, oh, um, you know, I’ve got to go talk to my mom. They might think they're back into childhood again. So just redirect them, just reorient them to what's going on right now, help them feel safe, you know, help promote awareness in themselves and their environment. It's really helpful. Also, when you enter the room, just say who you are and why you're there. Next, you want to provide structured and guided activities while maintaining a schedule and routine to try to keep things normal.
This is going to help the patient maintain awareness and offer a sense of security. So, you'll want to educate the patient's family about the disease. This is going to help that family to cope. This is really hard on them you guys, really hard. Their family member is changing right in front of their eyes. So, you want to help them cope. You want to help prepare them for changes and adapt to the needs of the patient.
Lastly, you want to make sure you administer medications as ordered guys. We can't reverse this disease at this point in time, we don't have that ability with medications, but we can stop it from progressing as much as we can with medications, right? Um, so medications are going to help to manage that memory loss and hopefully delay the progression of the disease. There's other meds as well that we might need to use to treat behavior such as agitation, combativeness, things like that and symptoms.
We love you guys! Now go out and be your best self today. And as always, happy nursing!
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