Other Aspects of Cognitive Disorders (Nursing)

00:01 Let's go into some other aspects of cognitive disorders where the person now has an increased need for healthcare decision making, like advanced directives, living wills, guardianship, power of attorney.

00:17 What do we mean by all of these things? When you go into nursing school, you're not going to law school.

00:24 But it's really important to understand that your patient who is now beginning to lose the capacity to make decisions for him or herself or they self, it is so important to have a family conversation.

00:40 Bring in the social worker, have the family sit down, and understand that this person, while they can make decisions should have an advanced directive, they should probably have a living will in the event that their Alzheimer's disease takes its course, and they are living in a stupor.

01:03 Guardianship is something that's very painful for a family to do.

01:09 They have to go to court, they have to demonstrate that the person that they want guardianship over is no longer capable of taking care of themselves.

01:20 But that way, they are able to provide for they are able to take care of their loved one.

01:27 And also getting power of attorney who is going to make decisions.

01:32 So these are really important and terribly difficult topics, but they need to be undertaken by us and by social workers and the other team in the hospital.

01:44 Taking care of a person with a neurocognitive disorder is a multi disciplinary task.

01:50 It is not only on the shoulders of nurses, we share this whole idea with the rest of the team, because it requires that much of us.

02:01 We want to make sure that the financial burdens that this person and their family are going through that there are a team of people to try and assist as these progressive diseases continue.

02:19 This way we're able to help them with the provision of care, as well as that caregiver burden that we were discussing