Cognitive Impairment Reflection

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Reflection of the experience Alzheimer’s unit at the Villa cares for patients that need more special care and have some type of cognitive impairment. The first thing I did was introduce myself to the staff and the residents, I talked with the nurse aids in charge and asked them about the clients, their routines, what activities they like and which ones they don’t. Patients with cognitive impairments benefit from a structure schedule, this helps stimulate his memory and they are able to remember at what time certain things are done. This experience was challenging at first because the short experience we have working with these types of clients, but with the help of the aids and the instructor my stay there was beneficial for my personal and …show more content…

This tool effectively is able to track the progressive decline in clients with dementia, and sometimes it’s helpful to determine if the treatment for these clients have a positive effect (O’Bryant, et al, 2009). I asked the staff which of the clients would be a good candidate to do a MME to check if there have been any cognitive deterioration. Once I had the client, I introduced myself and asked him if he would like to do an activity and started doing the MME. The result were low, he scored 7 which puts him in severe cognitive impairment. We started with some simple questions such as the year and date, which he was unable to answer, when I asked him where he was (state, and county) he mentioned Nebraska and USA, then as we continued most of the other directions such as mentioning and recalling three random words weren’t successful. He was able to fold a paper in half which was a part of one direction but didn’t put on the floor which was the other part of the assignment. He still keep his ability to read and understand was is written, he read the “close your eyes” sentence and then closed his eyes. One thing that got my attention was how easy and almost identical he drew the two geometry figures, something that people without cognitive impairment sometimes have hard time doing it. He was unable to count backwards. He couldn’t recognize a pen or wrist watch but when I showed him a fake 5 dollar bill he started smiling and say that’s five dollar, so I gave him credit for