Introduction
Alzheimer’s disease is a progressive disease that destroys human memory and other fundamental mental functions. Memory loss, abnormality, and confusion are the main symptoms of the disease. Alzheimer’s is considered one of the leading public healthcare problems affecting millions of people globally. Alzheimer’s disease has become a major chronic health disease and a leading cause of mortality and mental disability among the elderly population. Today, about 15% of the world’s elderly population has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease (Dubois et al., 2021). Alzheimer’s disease together with other closely related dementias illnesses is the costliest medical complication shaking the financial stability of many families. The cost of offering long-term care for Alzheimer’s disease has been increasing, with many families in the United States and Canada preferring nursing homes for the wellbeing of their patients. Importantly, the patients suffering from Alzheimer’s disease receive healthcare services from informal and formal caregivers. If an individual with Alzheimer’s disease opts for the communal or nursing living environment, or if he/she is in acute need of more attention and care than the care offered at home-based nursing, long-term care may be offered as the best option. In case the situation for Alzheimer’s disease escalates with persistent confusion and memory loss, an individual may be recommended for special long-term care services from professional nurses. In an attempt to comprehensively complete this essay, we will draw a close look at the movie “Away from Her Alzheimer’s”, and present the long-term care implications portrayed in the film. In reference to the film, the essay will draw a conclusion by reflecting on the impact of long-term care on Alzheimer patients and society in general. The essay will take the central stage from the movie review and take its course in analyzing the long-term care implications—while drawing reference from a theoretical perspective.
Away from Her Alzheimer’s Movie Review
In the remarkable movie “Away From Her” (Alzheimer’s), the author Julie Christie portrays the critical mental condition of Fiona, a married woman with Alzheimer’s disease, who decides to volunteer for the long-term care facility, with the ultimate aim of avoiding being an acute burden on Grant, her lovely husband at the age of 50 years. After a 30 days’ separation in the recommended long-term care facility, Grant decides to visit the Fiona surprisingly finds her lover’s memory further deteriorating, while at the same time developing a close relationship with another caregiver in the same healthcare facility. Out of wisdom, care, and love, Grant draws a conclusion based on pure love, and respect for Fiona’s decision, thus ensuring the wife’s happiness is sustained at a critical moment of her treatment and healing journey. In the movie, the author highlights that the main symptom for Alzheimer’s disease, especially for elderly people is remembering newly learned information because all the primary changes begin in the part of the brain that affects learning. Some of the notable effects of the disease as mentioned in the movie include changing moods and behavior changes. This is commonly evident at the begging of the movie, especially in the scene where Fiona is seen wearing beautiful clothing and hair, but as the movie progresses, she changes to tinny and unremarkable clothing.
Long-term Care Implications
Before subjecting an individual to Alzheimer’s disease long-term treatment options, it is important to understand some of the key types of long-term care needed for the patient. However, learning about long-term care helps in determining the best care option that perfectly fulfills the needs of the patient with dementia. However, the transition to the different nursing institution for dementia is specifically different for the individuals as most of the Alzheimer’s patients receives the daily visit before being provided with physical care during the visit (Weller & Budson, 2018). The clinical interventions are much needed when preparing caregivers for the placement transition, or when treating their anxiety and depression.
Based on the Movie analysis, and tracing back the development of Fiona’s memory loss, retirement housing has been portrayed as the best mental recovery treatment option presented to Fiona at the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease development. This is represented as primary care, although it comes with limited housing supervision and offers ample opportunities for social support through transportation to the nursing settings and other healthcare amenities. Based on the healthcare and treatment transition of Fiona, one of the long-term care implication outlined include high demand for Alzheimer’s disease caregivers. Fiona’s case in the movie highlights the fact that many people with dementia lack quality caregiver services. However, it shows that number of the care providers recipients is dramatically decreased as the number of older people in need of assistance is rising. Given the memory loss and confusion evident in Fiona’s case, the number of patients with dementia needs more care providers, including family caregivers and long-term care providers (Panza et al., 2019). Notably, the growing demand and ability to offer quality healthcare services ultimately continue to threaten long-term care service delivery as the turnover is highly spreading in home-based care services, residential care health environments, and hospices.
The support services are fundamental issues for the individual living with Alzheimer’s disease. One must understand that the individual needs for the patient with Alzheimer’s disease change significantly over the course of illness and treatment process. Upon the diagnosis of Fiona, she was unable to live in at-home settings with serious modifications to the same living space with his husband along with the support of her friends and other family members. During 30 days of the stay in the hospital, Fiona could barely remember anything, above all the long-term loss of cognitive thinking, language, behavior, and memory symptoms. At every critical stage in time, nurses or caregivers must understand the wishes of an individual with Alzheimer’s disease with most emphasis placed on financial and individual preferences. Fiona’s conditions of memory loss, confusion, and behavioral changes require formal support. However, these long-term care issues can only be achieved by ensuring friends and family support for an individual to continue interacting and reflecting on community safety (Mintun et al., 2021). For example, the missing of Grant, Fiona’s husband has left a negative landmark in the recovery process of Fiona. Fiona can barely recognize her husband, and for this matter, she ends up developing love companionship with caregivers in the nursing facility setting. Ultimately, this shows that despite a patient choosing long-term care services, informal support is highly required, especially for long-married couples. Moreover, some of the key informal support services required by the patient include personal care, scheduling doctor’s appointments, and offering individual support (Mathys et al., 2019). In connection to this condition, adult daycare should be provided, especially, for elderly patients like Fiona. Notably, patients with Alzheimer’s disease should be subjected to group programs, which offer additional support and care services such as social activities, meals, and other healthcare-related services.
In the film, Fiona is portrayed as receiving assisted living and nursing home services. These are also called adult living or supportive care services. From the movie, it can be argued that assisted living support services help in bridging the gap between the patients and caregivers in the nursing homes. Essentially, it offers a typical combination of housing, healthcare services, and support services. Importantly, it must be recalled that not all assisted living support services are designed for patients with Alzheimer’s disease, but the options of the care services might vary depending on the needs of the patient (Schneider, 2020). Alzheimer’s patients must be offered 24-hour service delivery in special and memory care units. However, facilities offered should be free-standing or be partly skilled home nursing. Notably, memory care provided should be secure, and most importantly easy to maneuver environment by the use of trained staff who understand the needs of the individual patient.
In the movie, the mental condition for Fiona calls for special staffing and training. The staffing requirements nurses must have experience in offering nursing home services, although strong support is required from the health ministry. Beyond measures to meet the required and mandatory staffing requirements to offer care services for patients with Alzheimer’s disease, awareness is highly needed in deployment and alignment with the patients’ needs and nursing home routines. However, flexible schedules should be required in decreasing employees turnover—while avoiding the high cost involved in offering support care for dementia patients. For the nursing home facilities, flexibility should be manifested in controlling the time and accessing vast opportunities for other nursing activities that can help the patient overcome mental challenges and state of emotion. Unlike other illness such as Malaria, the unique characteristics of Alzheimer’s disease, including disorientation, loss of memory, impaired communication, and behavioral changes often requires trained nursing staff, who understands the needs of patients, and the best treatment options and strategies essential for the Alzheimer’s patients (Schneider, 2020). Overall, all the caregivers offering care services to Alzheimer’s patients must have proper training skills, which ensures a positive approach in reducing stress, while improving patient outcomes. Furthermore, the caregiver must be able to understand the concept of individual-centered care in an attempt to deliver high-quality healthcare services for all the patients with Alzheimer’s disease.
When an individual with Alzheimer’s disease requires full-time support, like the case of Fiona, moving the patient to long-term care services might be the best option. For Fiona, moving to a long-term care facility was one of the most fundamental and disrupting transitions in her dementia recovery journey. In such cases, Alzheimer’s societal resources help in supporting staff, patients, and families during and after the transition period towards long-term care. The nurses should be able to offer meal times and their effects on mental wellbeing. The caregivers should be able to present strategies and tips for navigating some of the changes experienced by dementia patients during mealtime (Mintun et al., 2021). Personal care should be designed to examine how the dementia effect should affect personal hygiene and care. Above all, the caregivers should provide quality communication services and explain how dementia could impact individual communication ability. The nurses should, however, suggest some of the useful strategies and tips essential in maintaining and enhancing communication across the entire recovery process. The resources used in serving the needs of the patient should be designed to deeply define the quality of life.
Conclusion
In summary, Alzheimer’s is considered one of the leading public healthcare problems affecting millions of people globally. Memory loss, abnormality, and confusion are the main symptoms of the disease. Alzheimer’s disease together with other closely related dementias illnesses is the costliest medical complication shaking the financial stability of many families. If an individual with Alzheimer’s disease opts for the communal or nursing living environment, or if he/she is in acute need of more attention and care than the care offered at home-based nursing, long-term care may be offered as the best option. The clinical interventions are much needed when preparing caregivers for the placement transition, or when treating their anxiety and depression. At every critical stage in time, nurses or caregivers must understand the wishes of an individual with Alzheimer’s disease with most emphasis placed on financial and individual preferences. A number of patients with dementia need more care providers, including family caregivers and long-term care providers. Ultimately, this shows that despite a patient choosing long-term care services, informal support is highly required, especially for long-married couples. All the caregivers offering care services to Alzheimer’s patients must have proper training skills, which ensures a positive approach in reducing stress while improving patient outcomes.
References
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