Nurse's Perspective: Managing Alzheimer's Disease

Because Alzheimer’s disease has no cure, nursing care of patients with Alzheimer’s is focused around maintaining the patient’s quality of life, maximizing their independence doing daily activities, maximally enhancing and prolonging cognition, mood, and behavior, and encouraging continued interpersonal relationships and social interactions. Other elements include frequent monitoring of the patient’s health and cognitive function, encouraging and educating optimal support systems, introducing drug related and non-drug related treatments to manage the symptoms associated with Alzheimer’s, and evaluating the patients and their families’ motivations for volunteering in clinical trials (to help us further understand Alzheimer’s disease).

Source: Management and Patient Care (2009). Retrieved February 21, 2015, from http://www.alz.org/health-care-professionals/medical-management-patient-care.asp