Can Nurses Specialize With Dementia Patients?
Thursday, August 12th, 2010 at
8:00 am
Jen asked:
I am a caregiver at a memory care facility for people with dementia, mostly Alzheimer’s. I have become very familiar with dementia and have recently decided to become a nurse. Can I specialize in Dementia or would I have to just get my RN and find a dementia facility?
What would be the best route for me to take? What is it like to actually be a nurse for people living with dementia, verses being a caregiver? (I’m told the only difference is that nurses poke people… true or not so true?)
Thank you!
Tagged with: Memory Care • People • Rn
Filed under: Alzheimers
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You would just be an RN. However going into that kind of a place they might give you a little hands on training with dementia, but no you cannot specialize in anything when being a nurse, only MD’s may do that.
Yes Jen…
You can become a nurse and work with general or specifc mental health patients (umbrella term is mental health)…mainly (such as in a psych ward) of a teaching hospital or other hospital or private facility (pay may be better)…
or you can work as a nurse practitioner/professional (one able to work in a carreer)..in private practice…usually a doctor’s office GP or specialist’s office/clinical psychologists practice etc…and last but not least you can work with the elderly population as the primary health care sercice provider in a nursing home…or private housing facility…such a private home or condominium to (yes) the generally retired elderly… many of whom like as you say…have dementia ( old name senility…are in stages of or have already come under the progressive influence of demetia and are or are becoming senile)…
believed today as a direct result of the onset and progress of the Alzheimer’s disease…
Hopefully by the time you graduate a cure will be found…promising technologies are still undergoing medical research and testing…of course pending FDA approval…
Any help you could offer to these efforts …with this specific population in terms of community helath care (i.e elderly h.c.) …would of course be greatly appreciated generally by the entire health care community…
regards
Ignore the blogspot from “Vicil”. It’s a fake and can’t help you in any way.
RNs specialize just as doctors do and RNs can be general practitioners just as doctors can be general practitioners. Don’t let any non-nurse tell you differently. While you cannot “specialize” in dementia, per se, you can go into Psych nursing and later seek employment at an Alzheimer’s unit. You learn on the job and you can go on to become ANCC certified in Psych nursing. The ANCC is the American Nurses Credentialing Center.
Psych nursing is less task-oriented than other nursing and requires that more time be spent with your patients. It requires that you be caring and compassionate but also assertive. The professional organization is the APNA (American Psychiatric Nurses Association).
As a nurse, you’ll have a license and perform different types of assessments, write care plans and administer medications, assess and treat pain, interact with physicians, transcribe and carry out orders, monitor conditions and report changes, interact with family members and more. You can delegate to unlicensed assistive personnel. Caregivers are unlicensed and perform ADLs (activities of daily living) and these include baths, diapering, feeding, transfers from beds to chairs, toileting, grooming, dressing, shopping and so on. Caregivers take direction from nurses. There’s a world of difference between the two. From my perspective, nursing is a career and caregiving is a job. No offense meant to caregivers.
You are a lovely person to want to do this. I hope you succeed in a big way. Please let me know if there’s anything I can do to help you reach your goal.