Seminar day on dementia

Seminar day on dementia

Dementia is a group of diseases that affects the brain and results in slowly but progressive deterioration in the process of thinking, memory, decision making and insight and later leads to functional deterioration.

During the seminar day which took place last week at the Barzilai Medical Center, leading doctors, nurses and social workers presented fascinating lectures on types of dementia, medical therapy, teaching the staff how to deal with a hospitalized dementia patient, dealing with delirium, social worker involvement in planning discharge and fulfilling patients' rights.

The term dementia describes a neurological state that is deteriorating over time and thus dealing with this disease and treating it are very complicated needing recruitment of mental, physical and economic forces from the patient and his family.

From the point of view of the caregiver, he needs to be prepared to deal with different patient behaviors like verbal or physical violence and resistance or refusal of treatment.