Intervention and Treatment of Delirium in Elderly People Essay

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Health care givers should work to ensure that they intervene with the people who do not suffer from delirium. They should ensure that they involve all the family members to cooperate in helping their parents and grandparents handle the condition. There are a lot of studies done examining this issue. For example, Noyan, Elbi and Aksu studied delirium caused by amitriptyline overdose. In such a case, it is possible to cure it with the cholinesterase inhibitor donepezil, as suggested by the authors (2005).

However, when it concerns elderly people, there should be teaching plans aimed to educate both the patients and their family how to behave to handle delirium since that is the only way in which the intervention can work. “Management strategies for delirium are focused on prevention and symptom management.” (Fong, Tulebaev, & Inouye, 2009, p. 885) This condition is very delicate, that is why relatives of the patient must be ready to work with the health care givers to ensure that quality intervention is administered.

In elderly people, delirium is common hence affecting their cognitive aspects of human behaviors. As people get old, delirium can affect their mental coordination, hence leading to a situation where they cannot depend on themselves to carry out normal tasks. This means that their mind is affected making them dependent on others because they cannot even wash themselves without somebody’s help (Restrepo, 2008). If not controlled in time, it may lead to their untimely death, but if detected and controlled early enough, the lives of the patients can be prolonged.

Delirium is preventable and when diagnosed and prevented, it remains controlled. Drugs which are known as precipitants of delirium should be avoided as they increase the chances of one developing the condition as he/she becomes old. Another strategy used in prevention of this condition is the hospital elder life program that involves strategies tested in laboratories on how to prevent delirium in elderly patients in hospitals. This involves controlling the physical environment surrounding the patients, their nutrition intake and the number of hours they sleep. All these combined result in a quality and effective method of intervening and treating the condition among the elderly hospitalized.

Another effective strategy for preventing delirium is home rehabilitation. After hospitalization, the elderly people are eventually taken to their homes where they stay with their relatives (Oliver, 2011). The home setting is more relaxing than the hospital setting hence helping these elderly people to recover fast and avoid chances of delirium recurring again. This should be associated with stress management whereby the elderly people are given a conducive, environment free of stresses hence reconditioning their minds.

There are several treatment strategies applied by the medical practitioners to cure delirium among the elderly in the society. There are non-pharmacological strategies used to treat all the delirium patients. This is where caregivers reorient and intervene behaviors of patients to ensure that they eliminate the confusion state (Hamby, 2000). The caregivers should involve patients physically looking into their eyes; in case they have impaired eyesight or hearing, spectacles and hearing aids should be used to assist their sensory organs. Physical movements should be emphasized to enhance mobility among the patients. This works as the first line treatment for all the patients with this condition (Caraceni and Grassi, 2011).

There are also pharmacological strategies, which include the use of drugs meant to recondition the minds of people, hence curing delirium. Medication should be administered only under prescription by a medical doctor who has examined the patient (Manuel and Madera, 2003). Depending on their conditions, different patients may require different dosage and only a qualified medical practitioner can be trusted with the administration of drugs to those patients.

However, the use of these drugs may have an impact on the mental status of patients. Therefore, medical practitioners should take precaution when administering this treatment and recommend other forms of medication to people which drug use can affect their mental status.

References

Caraceni, A., & Grassi, L. (2011). Delirium: Acute Confusional States in Palliative Medicine. London: Oxford University Press.

Fong, T. G., Tulebaev, S.R. and Inouye, S. K. (2009). Delirium in elderly adults: Diagnosis, prevention and treatment. Nat. Rev. Neurol. 5, 210–220. Web.

Hamby, B. (2000). Delirium. Texas: University Of North Texas Press.

Noyan, M. A., Elbi, H. & Aksu, H. (2005). Donepezil for anticholinergic drug intoxication: a case report. Prog Neuropsychopharmacol Biol Psychiatry 27(5), 885–887.

Oliver, L. (2011). Delirium. New York: HarperCollins.

Restrepo, L. (2008). Delirium. London: Random House.

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