Dementia Reflection Model

Dementia is one of the most feared diseases and expensive to society currently. It is defined as a clinical syndrome of acquired cognitive impairment that determines decrease of intellectual enough capacity to interfere social and functional performance of the individual and their quality of life. It is a known fact that patients tend to express themselves through their behaviour and expect their carers to understand this notion. The diverse kinds of causes of different behaviours are inability to communicate, difficulty with tasks, unfamiliar surroundings, loud noises, frantic environment, and physical discomfort. Many diseases can cause dementia, some of which may be reversible. The term dementia has not been used uniformly in the historical

Since I am placed in the Geriatric Hospital, I have to work with dementia patients and make certain that they are provided the right kind of care. In order to reflect regarding my placement and the kind of work I did, I will use the reflective model of Gibbs’ (1998) (see Appendix 1). The Gibbs’ reflective model consists of 6 stages of reflection and allows the individual to reflect on his experience in a detail manner focusing on each

In this stage, I will describe what I felt about the situation. At first, I was amazed at the way Susan was taking care of the situation. She was continuously trying to keep John calm, but even she knew that she was failing at it. The pain on her face whilst telling her husband that their son will be coming late, when in reality he won’t be coming at all, was clear. At this point I wondered that how many times John must have asked this question at home and how Susan would have taken care of the situation. In the hospital, at least I was around to help and ease the situation but at home, Susan must be alone with no-one to help her. When John had started to verbally abuse Susan and his voice became loud, even I felt embarrassed. I felt embarrassed because I was standing at a distance from there and watching the entire situation, and yet, I felt completely helpless. I thought I could not help them in any way. However, when I finally went up to John to control the situation, I realised that his dementia was making him confused. He was trying hard to remain calm; however, he was eager to meet his son and that alone made him annoyed. For John, meeting his son was extremely important because he believed that once his son arrives, everything will become better. After controlling the situation, I looked at Susan. Her silent thank you revealed many emotions. She wanted to cry and let out her annoyance at the situation.