Nurse Empathy and Care of People with Dementia

Question: Discuss about the Nurse Empathy and Care of People with Dementia. Answer: Introduction: According to this paper, empathy is a key aspect of effective remedial treatment provided to vulnerable patients under critical conditions. Empathy must be provided by nurses to vulnerable patients in order to deliver optimal compassionate care. Vulnerable patients with dementia usually suffers with other chronic maladies and requires overall physiological and psychological treatment. The author has defined dementia as one of the neurological disorders arising due to damage to the brain cells and causes different symptoms such as memory loss, disorientation, hindered executive operations, depression, difficulty with articulation and cognizance, delusions and deportment disorganization. This usually occurs more in elderly people than children and young adults. Furthermore, an empathetic nurse provides adjustable and friendly environment to these patients with tenderness and amiability. Such treatment allows the patient with dementia to respond better to the remedial treatment provided . Moreover, there are certain prevailing factors that limit optimal palliative care following empathy. Stigmatization of patients with dementia by different healthcare professionals leads to a barrier between nurses and patients. Stigmatization leads to judgmental attitude towards the patient mental health and wellbeing. Besides this, increasing work pressure and stress on nurse is another prevalent barrier causing disharmony between nurses and patient. In particular, this article determines dementia as an additional load of psychological wellbeing of the patient on the nurses. Such maladies require a multidisciplinary approach with optimal implementation of assistive technology, pharmacological therapy and medication. Additionally, decrease in the dissatisfaction among nurses can be achieved by providing updated technology, effective training and decrement in the work pressure by appropriate organizational governance. Such measures will lead to increment in the empathy by nurses to wards the patient suffering with dementia. Bibliography Digby, R., GradDipAdvNur, A., R. N., Lee, S. (2016). Nurse empathy and the care of people with dementia. Australian Journal of Advanced Nursing, 52-59.