The patient described in this paper is my family member, who has experienced Alzheimer’s for the last three years. It is a 69-year-old man suffering from memory, language, comprehension, and reasoning impairment, which makes him vulnerable during interactions with the outer world. The laboratory test results include an MRI scan demonstrating how brain regions are shrinking due to Alzheimer’s disease. This patient is selected because his case justifies the importance of nurses with high sensitivity and empathy who help patients to remain independent regardless of their medical conditions.
Alzheimer’s disease is associated with dementia symptoms and cognitive disability. Two-thirds of people with dementia develop Alzheimer’s at age 65 or older (Kumar et al., 2022). This patient also started developing symptoms such as poor judgment, out-of-character behavior, and disorganization when he was 66. In a year, the patient experienced selective short-term memory loss and confusion with recognizing dates and places. These signs of Alzheimer’s are subjective data since they are collected from the patient and his family member’s observations.
When nurses interact with the patients, they also facilitate subjective assessment to evaluate the disease progression and development of other conditions. Although nursing professionals are not responsible for a mental status examination, they can observe and make conclusions after asking clients to concentrate on specific tasks or memorize some visuals. In my experience with this patient, he demonstrates quick attention shifts and problems with multitasking, such as watching television and talking simultaneously. Although the person does not show neuropsychiatric symptoms such as psychosis, apathy, and agitation, he should avoid environmental triggers and complicated tasks (Kumar et al., 2022). This subjective data about a person’s cognitive task problems prove that nurses should help patients with Alzheimer’s to deal with their activities and avoid injuries.
Regarding the objective data obtained from laboratory and diagnostic results, it helps monitor the changes in brain functions. Initially, the patient passed complete blood tests to detect any other illnesses. The results proved that the patient had no accompanying diseases except cognitive decline. However, later, physicians used volumetric MRI to prove the shrinkage of the temporal lobe (Kumar et al., 2022). Since phosphorylated tau proteins and beta-amyloid play crucial roles in differential diagnosis, they are also included in the objective measurement. During this examination, the presence of beta-amyloid 42 proved the existence of plague in the brain that interferes with neuron functions. These data help to differentiate the diagnosis from many other cognitive health impairments and dementia forms.
The importance of this person in my clinical history is high since his case teaches me to support patients’ autonomy and independence. Although there are some drugs to eliminate Alzheimer’s symptoms, this disorder has no cure. When nurses interact with patients who will never be healthy again, they put more effort into patients’ decent life quality. Having a family relationship with this person helps me to be more empathetic toward him and assess his condition more precisely.
To conclude, Alzheimer’s patients demand nurses with special training and sensitivity. As the illness is invariably progressive without any specific treatment, such patients suffer from severe cognitive and motor functions decline. This condition forces nurses to educate family members, minimize agitation, and help with patients’ daily tasks. As this patient experience cognitive impairments, my primary goal is to manage his behavior problems and maintain a support system.
Reference
Kumar, A., Sidhu, K., Goyal, A., Tsao, J. W., & Doerr, C. (2022). Alzheimer disease (nursing). In StatPearls. StatPearls Publishing. Web.