Clinical Reflection: A Day At Alzheimer's Unit

Clinical Reflection: A Day At The Alzheimer’s Unit

The day started out like any typical day for me; say my morning prayer, take a shower, eat breakfast, watch the news, check with the family, do the chores, and then head out for clinical. Those are part of my morning ritual, my routine. This early in the semester, nursing school had already taught me quite a number of different things such as theories, nursing practices, and skills. The one thing that professors and nursing instructors cannot impart, though, are the actual experiences, especially like the one at the Alzheimer’s unit, where the randomness and specificity of each patient’s response deviates from what is on the book. This is the kind of learning where I often expunge the

In theory, the routine allows the patients some comforting level of familiarity since dementia gradually impairs them of the ability to plan, initiate and complete an activity. In practice, however, the care for the patients in that unit is anything but routine. I could go back to my classroom notes, search the books, and even look up the different theories, yet some explanation might not fully describe or conform with my own assessment due to the complexities associated with the disease. Patients with alzheimer’s do not often adhere to the routine without constant reinforcement, but even then the outcome oftentimes veer from the desired goal. Like my morning routine, I may miss out on important issues of the day if I, instead, watch the news when I get home in the evening, but then I would have more family time in the morning. This clinical experience emphasized the relevance of the critical thinking process in making sound clinical judgement. The direct patient care experience, however, taught me not only the importance of keeping routines but also emphasized the need to occasionally diverge from it as needed in certain