HOSPICE
DEMENTIA
Deterioration of intellectual faculties, such as memory, concentration, and
judgment, resulting from an organic disease or a disorder of the brain. It is
sometimes accompanied by emotional disturbance and personality changes.
Patients with
dementia must show all the following characteristics:
1. Stage seven
or beyond according to the Functional Assessment Staging Scale
Stage 7 is severe Alzheimer’s disease. In this stage, all speech is lost.
Patients lose urinary and bowel control. They lose the ability to walk. Most
become bedridden and die of sepsis or
pneumonia.
2. Unable to walk without assistance
3. Unable to
dress without assistance
4. Unable to
bathe without assistance
5. Urinary and
fecal incontinence, intermittent or constant
(unable
to control bladder and bowel movements)
6. No
meaningful verbal communication; stereotypical phrases only or ability to speak
is limited to six or fewer intelligible words
and
Patients must
have had one of the following within the past 12 months:
1. Aspiration
pneumonia (pneumonia
resulting from the entrance of foreign material, usually food particles or
vomit, into the upper airway)
2.
Pyelonephritis or other upper urinary tract infection
3. Septicemia
(the
invasion and persistence of pathogenic bacteria in the blood-stream)
4. Decubitus
ulcers, multiple, stage 3-4
(A
decubitus
ulcer is a pressure sore or what is commonly called a "bed sore)
5. Fever,
recurrent after antibiotics
6. Inability to
maintain sufficient fluid and calorie intake with 10% weight loss during the
previous six months or serum albumin <2.5 gm/dl
If you have any
questions call
Grace Hospice
of