Dementia is a disease that affects many and is not going away anytime soon. Being forced to deal with a loved one who is suffering from the memory wiping disease can force people to look at a nursing home for assistance. It is a struggle to cope with the constant restlessness, state of confusion, and sometimes the lack to communicate verbally that a dementia victim suffers from. Looking for a nursing home to house a dementia victim is a difficult task due to the certain criteria to be met. One of the many questions faced is whether to choose a nursing home that has constant surveillance by technology such as camera and global positioning systems (GPS), or have a more hands on approach that includes surveillance by nurses and other aids
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This is especially important for dementia residents because being physically fit increases the overall health of dementia residents. Family members in an effort to care for their loved ones and keep them from straining themselves they will encourage them to remain sedentary (Mendes, 2015). The opposite happens in nursing homes, residents are being encouraged to do things on their own with support of the nurses. Nurses will engage the residences in conversations about the physical activities they performed that day, what kind of activities they like to do, or even what they wish they could do. Anything that gets a resident up and moving is considered physical activity for them. For example, cleaning their room, gardening, walking, retrieving their own food, or even deliver the mail around the nursing home facility can be considered physical activity (Mendes, 2015). Even just sitting without a back support for some residences is enough to make a positive difference in their health. It is extremely important for the nurses to encourage residents to remain physically active or else the side effects can be detrimental to their overall health, sometimes even being the initial causes of them passing away. A lack of physical activity in residents suffering from dementia can cause muscles and bones to weaken, lung and chest problems, troubles digesting food that can lead to loss in appetite, increase in blood pressure, more likely to get possibly fatal infections, and it is harder for residents to sleep at night. There are even more negative effects of not being an active dementia resident aside from the ones I listed (Mendes, 2015). It is well known that being elderly can increase the amount of falls an individual has but having dementia as well only increases that number even more. Elissa Burton (2015), a professor at Curtin University in
This is especially important for dementia residents because being physically fit increases the overall health of dementia residents. Family members in an effort to care for their loved ones and keep them from straining themselves they will encourage them to remain sedentary (Mendes, 2015). The opposite happens in nursing homes, residents are being encouraged to do things on their own with support of the nurses. Nurses will engage the residences in conversations about the physical activities they performed that day, what kind of activities they like to do, or even what they wish they could do. Anything that gets a resident up and moving is considered physical activity for them. For example, cleaning their room, gardening, walking, retrieving their own food, or even deliver the mail around the nursing home facility can be considered physical activity (Mendes, 2015). Even just sitting without a back support for some residences is enough to make a positive difference in their health. It is extremely important for the nurses to encourage residents to remain physically active or else the side effects can be detrimental to their overall health, sometimes even being the initial causes of them passing away. A lack of physical activity in residents suffering from dementia can cause muscles and bones to weaken, lung and chest problems, troubles digesting food that can lead to loss in appetite, increase in blood pressure, more likely to get possibly fatal infections, and it is harder for residents to sleep at night. There are even more negative effects of not being an active dementia resident aside from the ones I listed (Mendes, 2015). It is well known that being elderly can increase the amount of falls an individual has but having dementia as well only increases that number even more. Elissa Burton (2015), a professor at Curtin University in