Essay Example on Holistic Care for Dementia Patients: Nursing Staff Competencies

Abstract

This research paper has the purpose of explaining the skills that nursing staff requires in the holistic care of dementia patients. Different competencies of the nursing staff are discussed, and an explanation conducted of the skills needed by the nurses who act as caregivers to dementia patients. The first chapter is the introduction, which generally offers an overview of holistic care in dementia patients and the competencies required by different nursing staff. The chapter also introduces different terms and concepts used for dementia patients and the nursing staff and how they are useful in the rest of the research paper. The second chapter is the literature review, which analyzes past researches by different authors in the past decade. The literature review is an essential section of the research paper, as it helps formulate the results and discussions. It also provides information for the researcher to give more information that is required to obtain the objectives of the research as well as answer all research questions presented in the introduction. The third chapter of the research is the methodology part that explains the sources used in this research paper. The primary sources are divided into research design, sample size, sampling, and data collection. The fourth chapter is the results section, which is acquired from the participants of the interviews and questionnaires and how they relate to the secondary sources used. The results are used to formulate the discussion, and the contributions of the primary and secondary sources to the information acquired. The last part is the conclusion that gives a summary of the information in the paper.

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Keywords: Dementia care, caregivers, patients, and registered nurses.

Competency of Nursing Staff in Holistic Dementia Care

1.0 Introduction

Holistic care is a useful model in the care of patients, especially for many nurses in the health industry. It includes different approaches such as education, communication, and other primary complementary treatments that will help to deal with patients, especially those under dementia care. There must exist a positive relationship between health providers and patients that include respect, equality, mutuality, openness, and participation of patients in the decision making process of care. Holistic care also increases the understanding of patients and their needs by the nurses. The nurses have to respect the role of their patients in the process of treatment for easy therapeutic consultations. Literature review on holistic dementia care shows evidence that many studies performed are usually limited to certain areas like in old patients that are terminally ill.

Literature Review

Author Title Aim / Research Question Methods Data Findings

Ambal and Choudar (2017) Dementia Care in Elderly People - Vital Role of a Nurse. To determine the benefits of nursing in dementia care patients. Analysis of past studies. Article by Griffiths et al. (2013). Two-thirds of staff of UK hospitals undergo training in Dementia.

Rahman and Dening (2016) The Need for Specialist Nurses in Dementia Care. Nursing

Times To raise awareness of the care of dementia patients to nurses. Review of 155 studies majoring in community support for carers. A systematic review of qualitative studies. Members of the public have an appetite to have more knowledge of dementia and its care.

Zamanzadeh, Jasemi, Valizadeh, Keogh, and Taleghani (2015) Effective

Factors in Providing Holistic Care: A Qualitative Study. To determine the factors in holistic care that enhances effective care. Qualitative study. Fourteen nurses were interviewed in Iran. Three main themes established. Personality traits, educational system, and professional environment.

Morgan, Kosteniuk, O'Connell, Dal Bello-Haas, Stewart and Karunanayake (2016) Dementia-Related Work Activities of Home Care Nurses and Aides: Frequency, Perceived Competence, and Continuing Education priorities.

Educational Gerontology To examine the frequency and competence in performing activities related to dementia care. A study was done in Sun Country Regional Health Authority. The cross-sectional survey used to gather data. CE programming plans need to be created for home care providers.

Monthaisong(2018) Nurses' Experiences Providing Care for People with Dementia: An Integrative Literature Review

J Nurs Care Review experiences of RNs that provide dementia care to affected patients. Integrative Literature review. Data was collected using a review of 19 articles. Themes realized included meeting needs for holistic care and working under significant conditions.

Wiener, Gould, Shuman, Kaur, Ignaczak, and Maslow (2016) Examining models of dementia care: Final report. Report prepared for the Office of the

Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation. To learn more about how dementia care models meet standards of practice. Analysis of thirty-seven clinical guidelines and documents for practice recommendation. Most activities that address components are performed by a trained professional. Care coordinators offer to model and coach for different behaviours of dementia care patients.

Traynor, Inoue, and Crookes (2011) Literature review: understanding nursing

competence in dementia care. Journal of Clinical Nursing To review competencies in dementia nursing. Literature review sources included academic databases, snowballing, and the internet. The literature review study addressed the aim and objectives of the study. Fifty-nine reviewed publications were sampled, and ten dementia competencies generated.

De Vriendt, Cornelis, Desmet, Vanbosseghem and Van de Velde (2018) Quality in dementia care: A cross-sectional study on the Bio-Psycho-Social competencies

of health care professionals. To examine whether dementia is delivered using a Bio-Psycho-Social manner. Calculation of differences between different groups of student's t-tests and ANOVAs. Data was collected through 413 professionals of health completing a care scale. Five subscale structures were achieved, including networking, assessment, environment usage, skills, as well as reporting and evaluation.

Bolt, Meijers, van der Steen, Schols and Zwakhalen (2020) Nursing Staff Needs in Providing Palliative Care for Persons With Dementia at Home or in Nursing Homes

To evaluate what nursing staff requirements in the provision of palliative care for dementia patients. A questionnaire administered to a sample of nursing staff. Quantitative survey data analyzed. Four hundred sixteen respondents explained family disagreement, challenging behaviours, peer to peer learning and recognition of pain.

Dementia is a disabling condition among patients who are diagnosed with it, and it is defined as a syndrome that emerges from brain disease. Dementia is a chronic disease that causes disturbance of various cortical functions that reduce the judgment of individuals affected by the disease. According to Ambal and Choudar (2017), the nursing staff is ideal in the provision of care in dementia, especially in the care provided in hospitals. They are capable of providing the same care at home for those who cannot afford to pay for the care in the hospital (Ambal and Choudar, 2017, pp. 1-4). After a nurse undergoes training in dementia care, they increase their practice and understanding of issues of how to provide the best care they possibly can.

Rahman and Dening (2016) explain that awareness of dementia is on the rise, although the improvements required to be realized in the care for such elderly individuals are yet to be understood. Specialist nurses have experienced overwhelming success in dementia care, with the research needed to explore different competencies and knowledge (Rahman and Dening, 2016, pp. 14-17). Dementia care nursing staffs are expected to have possession of high knowledge levels and better skills than other nurses and also be positioned as clinical groups that are engaged with new working ways.

Nurses in dementia care are expected to focus on the whole family's needs, such as psychological support that helps the patients and their families to understand the thoughts and behaviors as well as to adapt to various changing situations that define the lives of the patients (Zamanzadeh et al., 2015, pp. 214-224). The use of several interventions by specialists to help patients living with dementia is significant in the emphasis of early diagnosis and interventions that will support the carers (Rahman and Dening, 2016, pp. 14-17).

Research shows that more than 44 million people in the world live with this health state, and the number is anticipated to increase to 75 million in the year 2030 (Morgan et al., 2016, pp. 120-135). Policies of dementia enable individuals affected to gain a consensus around competence on the care that involves knowledge, attitudes, skills, and performances. The competence of nurses is dependent on context that is related to different existing conditions. Formal dementia care training for the nurses who act as caregivers to the patients affected by this condition is essential as it makes the nurses gain confidence in their styles of handling patients and understanding. Nursing staff that cares for patients with this disease have cited a need to improve their overall capability in dementia care due to a lack of sufficient skills amongst themselves.

An improvement in the understanding of different requirements needed in nurses' dementia care has created a future for the growth of the staff's work life and the patients' quality care. A relationship also exists between the competency in dementia care and the positive outcomes it has on the staff and their patients (Morgan et al., 2016, pp. 120-135). Increased competence increases the confidence that nurses have in their care for patients living with dementia; hence they are more probable to embrace an attitude that is person-centred with more satisfaction rates.

Person-centred care is a convenient method used as an excellent guideline for nursing staff to provide care. Monthaisong (2018) defines holistic care as the principal model of person-centred care that is used to advance the quality of life of those that live with dementia. Most nurses report that they continuously have negative emotions like exhaustion and frus...