Dementia in the Elderly

1. What dementia brought into my mind

Dementia is a common syndrome found among elderly over the globe. Talking about dementia, the first word emerge from mind is “loss”. Learning about the disease manifestation, it is known that dementia does bring a huge impact to the affected senior so as the caregiver. Many of us used to focus on the losses of dementia client which indeed causing a labeling effect. Remembered in the first lesson, a question “As a case manager, what will you do to help the client with dementia and the family?” was asked. I realized my answer is “Refer the client to suitable care unit”. It seems that my original thought deprived the elderly as I failed to think of other better solution like assisting them to age in the community. Although dementia leads to certain kinds of loss to people with dementia, their needs and strengths should not be neglected. Institutionalization thus may not the best solution. To serve the elderly, I need to modify my thought by adopting a strength-based approach. Practice should not mutually focus on the losses, but to explore more on the possibilities. Boosting the quality of life is also an important issue, empowering the client by bear in mind that “we are not only work for the service users, but work with them”.

2. Explanations of disease manifestation

The disease manifestation of dementia is classified as the cognitive impairment and the non- cognitive impairment. For cognitive impairment, it mainly covers five types of impairment which include the impairment of memory function, attention and concentration, orientation, executive function and also language skills. It is identified that Tommy has four types of those excluding the language skill impairment which characterized by aphasia. For impaired memory function, it is found that he has impairment of episodic short-term memory. The symptom caused him find hard