Nursing Interventions for Dementia: 5 Best Practices for Facilities
Facilities face many unique challenges when treating patients with dementia. As dementia can create barriers to self-care, nurses must use tailored strategies to ensure the safety and wellbeing of their patients. To shape effective nursing interventions for dementia, it’s also important that facilities provide appropriate tools and resources for their staff.
If you’re a facility leader looking to strengthen your dementia care protocols, this article will walk you through some fundamental tips to follow. The following overview explains how dementia can impact your patients and provides best practices for supporting the care delivery of your staff.
What Is Dementia? Statistics and Overview
Rather than referring to a singular condition, dementia is an umbrella term that covers a group of symptoms that cause a decline in cognitive abilities. The most common cause of dementia is Alzheimer’s disease, with roughly 5.8 million people in the U.S. experiencing Alzheimer’s disease-related dementia. Symptoms can vary from person to person, but individuals with dementia commonly experience:
- Memory loss and delirium
- Difficulty focusing, communicating, and problem solving
- Vision changes unrelated to aging
- Difficulty regulating emotions
Safety Concerns for Patients With Dementia
Patients with dementia often struggle to recognize and communicate their needs, which can greatly impact their ability to stay involved in their own care. This is why it’s so important for staff to understand potential safety concerns that may arise when caring for patients with dementia. Some common concerns include:
- Falls: Dementia can cause coordination issues and confusion, which can increase a patient’s risk of falls.
- Wandering: Delirium, confusion, or memory loss that can lead patients to wander into unsafe or unmonitored areas.
- Agitation: Dementia can cause sudden agitation or aggression, which may pose safety risks for both patients and providers.
- Poor medication management: Patients with dementia often forget to take scheduled medications. Additionally, they may not be able to relay allergies to providers, putting them at higher risk of experiencing adverse reactions.
- Burns and infections: Dementia can make it difficult to carry out self-care tasks. Uncontrolled water temperatures may increase risk of burns while poor hygiene practices can increase the risk of infection.
Nursing Interventions for Dementia: 5 Best Practices for Leaders
While nurses are trained to deliver basic dementia care, facilities are ultimately responsible for shaping nursing interventions and protocols. Follow these five best practices to help your nursing team support the safety and wellbeing of their patients.
1. Train Your Staff on Effective Communication Strategies
Educating and training your staff on effective communication strategies can elevate the quality of care and help prevent errors. When speaking to patients with dementia, nursing professionals should use simpler words and a more reassuring tone. Additionally, using non-threatening body language can help prevent symptoms of anxiety that often manifest from dementia.
2. Maintain a Safe Environment
Some of the most foundational nursing interventions for dementia relate to the environment. Nursing teams should proactively create a safer physical space for their patients. It’s important to ensure the rooms in your facility are familiar and structured so that your staff can quickly identify physical hazards. This includes things like loose items or faulty lighting, which can increase the risk of injury or falls in patients with dementia.
If your facility frequently cares for patients with dementia, you should also consider implementing additional measures to prevent wandering. This can include installing door alarm bells or assigning a night-watch nurse to keep an eye on high-risk patients.
3. Outline a Medication Management Protocol
While nurses are adept at medication administration, there are special considerations for managing medications for patients with dementia. To help your staff promote medication adherence and prevent adverse reactions, implement a dementia-specific medication management protocol that outlines best practices.
Incorporate these medication administration tips as part of a comprehensive nursing care plan for impaired memory:
- Monitor patients as they take medications
- Look out for signs of side effects or adverse reactions
- Keep medication administration as routined and scheduled as possible
4. Implement a Falls Prevention Program
When caring for patients with dementia, nursing diagnosis and planning should be centered around risk assessments. In particular, it’s important to have a comprehensive falls prevention program in place. Educate your staff on how to conduct falls risk assessments, which can help identify patients requiring physical aids or supervision. To strengthen your program, consider adopting the following evidence-based falls risk tools:
5. Provide De-Escalation Training
Finally, it’s important to protect both your patients and staff from potential harm caused by aggressive behaviors. If a patient with dementia is becoming agitated, staff should be equipped with strategies to safely de-escalate the situation. Implement a comprehensive de-escalation training program that teaches your staff how to appropriately respond and react in different situations.
Discover More Ways to Build a Culture of Safety
Implementing nursing interventions for dementia can be time- and resource-intensive. Are you feeling overwhelmed? IntelyCare is here to help. Our extensive information hub provides dozens of free expert insights into how to build a safer environment for both staff and patients.