Dementia may cause difficulties in communicating. People suffering from dementia are therefore often described as being unable to take part in meaningful conversation. The responsibility to create understanding in a conversation is shared by all participants. By means of different strategies, participants in conversation can construct understanding through collaboration. How these strategies are utilized in conversation where one or more of the participants suffer from dementia is relatively unknown.

The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine how family members perceive family support, and to gain a deeper understanding of how the relatives' part is affected by the dementia ill person. The result has been produced by semi-structured interviews with five respondents interviewed individually. The respondents who participated in the study, care for the dementia sufferer husband / wife at home, or the husband / wife has moved to a special housing. The result includes the perception of being a relative of a person with dementia, how they experience support from various parties, if there are any differences between men and women as well as the importance of communication and attitude. Overall it was shown that relatives often felt a sense of security and that they were satisfied with the support they received from the various parties.

Background: Alzheimer?s disease belongs to the largest group of dementia and stands for the half of those 37 millions persons whom are affected of dementia in the entire world. Alzheimer?s disease affects the patients with changes on their behaviour. It is important as a nurse to prevent that the symptoms increase.

The purpose of this essay was to investigate the care personnel's experience, and thoughts concerning the elderlies use of sedatives and sleeping tablets. The purpose was also to make a comparison between different forms of living, in an attempt to find out if the form of living in itself was a factor that affected the use of sedatives and sleeping-tablets.In order to investigate this, the main questions of this essay became:- To what extent do the patients use sedatives and sleeping tablets?- What is the care personnel's experience of, and thoughts about the patients' use of sedatives and sleeping tablets?To obtain answers to my questions I interviewed care personnel working at different types of homes for elderly people and working with elderly people still living at home.I came to the conclusion that where you live may also have an influence on the use of sedatives and sleeping tablets. This could be seen when a group of elderly people lived together, and some of them were suffering from dementia. Then it could happen that the elderly with dementia where given sedatives and sleeping tablets, not just in order to calm them, but also to give the others a better environment to live in..

I den aktuella kommun där studien genomförts har stora satsningar gjorts på att fortbilda vårdpersonal i demensvård under många år. Trots detta har det visat sig att det finns svårigheter för vårdarna att omsätta kunskaperna i det vardagliga arbetet. Under 2005-2008 pågår Kompetensstegen, en stor nationell satsning för att förbättra vården och omsorgens inre kvalitet i äldreomsorgen. Jag ville därför med mitt examensarbete undersöka effekterna av en så stor utbildningssatsning. Syftet var att undersöka vårdpersonalens uppfattningar av lärandet och de nya kunskaper som de fått genom Kompetensstegens demensutbildningar och vilka möjligheter eller hinder som finns för ett fortsatt lärande efter utbildningen.

Background: Dementia is an umbrella term for a group of diseases that affects the brain and causes cognitive impairment. Animal-assisted Therapy's goal is to meet patients' physical, psychological and social dimensions within the current health care field. To avoid problems like infections and allergy, robotic animals has been developed. The purpose of robotic animals is to induce relaxation and well-being of persons with cognitive impairment for example.Purpose: To compile scientific articles on which effects care dog and robotic animals have on mental and physical health in patients with dementia. Method: A literature review consisting of nine quantitative research articles.

People with dementia often have difficulties expressing their needs. Untreated pain within this group can be manifested as depression, agitation or loss in appetite. It can be a challenging task for a nurse to estimate, treat and evaluate pain for people with dementia. With good knowledge and an empathic approach, nurses can often recognize and relieve pain amongst these people. Despite this, litterature often suggest that unrecognized and untreated pain is common within this group..

 AbstractBackground: Among elderly people with dementia pain is a common problem. In older persons, particularly those suffering from dementia and cognitive impairment pain is often underdiagnosed and undertreated causing unnecessary pain, suffering and affect quality of life negatively. Dementia complicates the identification of pain when the natural ability to communicate decreases when a person is suffering from dementia. It is important that health professionals working with older persons with dementia are aware of the person?s pain expression.Aim: To clarify how older persons with dementia communicate pain expression.Method: To study this area a literature review was used.

AbstractAbout 160 000 persons living inSwedensuffer from some form of dementia. Alzheimer disease is the most common form of dementia and affects mostly people in the age of 65 and older. People with some form of dementia have memory problems and may even have other problems as aphasia and behavioral disorders. This may lead to communication problems and difficulties for the people around them. The number of demented people is increasing; it is therefore important to study methods for communication in order to improve the wellbeing for people with dementia.

Background: Pain can be a constant problem in many older people's daily life, associated with particular physical and social disability, depression and poor quality of life. Dementia diseases are often associated with old age. Communication difficulties are one of the consequences of the disease, which clarifies the role of nursing staff in detecting and assessing pain. Objective: The aim was to compile knowledge about how nursing staff can identify pain in people with dementia. Method: A systematic literature review, where data were collected through manual and database searches.

The aim of this littrature review has been to describe how you can satisfy the need of nourishment for older people who suffer from dementia. Data has been retrieved by searches in Academic Search Elite, Sience Direct, Blackwell, PubMed and in the Journal Vård i Norden. The studies show that most of the people with dementia have a hard time to satisfy the nourishment. The results show that through different preventive measurement you can improve the nourishment for these people, to set the table, play calm music and to have a table companion. By taking the food oneself created a good meal environment and the individually need was provided for.

?Dementia is an umbrella term for several symptoms of impaired brain function. The person's behavior is affected when mental functions such as memory, attention, concentration and language are affected and the dementia patient can have difficulties to interpret sensory input. Communication is based a lot on body language. It is therefore important for the caregiver to seek eye contact with the patient in order to simplify communication and it can be of great help to show with the whole body what they mean and be able to point out things.

The purpose of this study is to increase understanding of how nursing home staff at dementia care facilities interpret, treat and manages sexual behavior of patients. Four group interviews were made with a total of thirteen participants from three different Dementia care facilities. The collected material was processed and thematized in pursuance of the research questions of the study. The results were analysed using three concepts from queer theory; heteronormativity, the heterosexual matrix and power, as well as an article about how nursing home staff constructs actions of patients. The results showed that staff member?s assessments about the patient?s sexual behaviours depended on their posture towards the norm of what is considered to be acceptable.

Dementia may cause impairment of linguistic abilities, affecting both production and comprehension, which in turn affects communication (Mahendra & Hopper, 2012: Perkins, Whithworth & Lesser, 1998). The aim of the present study was to investigate and describe the communication strategies in everyday conversations between people with dementia and their interlocutors, and to describe the identified interaction phenomena based on a participatory perspective.The study was conducted at a home for people with dementia. Three people with known dementia and two health professionals participated in the study. Everyday interactions were filmed, and then transcribed and analyzed according conversation analytic principles. The transcribed data was also analyzed with ideas from positioning theory.The present study highlights the presence of trouble sources in communication between the person with dementia and carers and how these are handled by the participants in terms of strategies, competence and positioning.

The purpose of our study has been to examine the methods of validation and reminiscences from an employee point of view. To answer our aim a qualitative disquisition with four assistant nurses and one pedagogue in craft was conducted. The result was divided into three different themes: the view on people with dementia, merits and demerits with the methods and to work with people with dementia. The analysis of the result was made from selected parts of the system theory and symbolic interaction theory.The result of our disquisition can be summarized in that all our interviewed persons above all only can see advantages with the methods and several express that they are good tools to use in their work with people with dementia. The majority of our interviewed persons make use of the methods in everyday, spontaneous, meetings with the elderly.