Understanding Dementia in Young Service Users

Executive summary:

Dementia is a neurological health condition that is strongly associated with the progressive impairment of thinking ability, memory, decision making and cognitive skill (NHS, 2019). Service users who live with dementia in the UK are reported to suffer from a cognitive impairment that impacts adversely on the ability to perform the activities of daily livings (ADL). In the UK, young service users who live will dementia suffer from different psychological health conditions, such as difficulties in recognising names of people, poor motor and intelligence skills, depression, anxiety, loneliness, hallucination and mood swings. This assignment will discuss dementia, one of the most common mental health conditions in the UK in young people. This assignment will present a statistical database on dementia in young people in the UK. Here this assignment will present a critical discussion on how service users are supported and assisted throughout their treatment and recovery by the mental health care providers. Then the assignment will present a comprehensive discussion on how dementia impacts young service users in the UK and how this mental health condition can interfere with the ability of these service users to perform the activities of daily living.

Introduction:

There are several mental health conditions in society such as dementia, psychosis, bipolar disorders and depression that pose adverse impacts on the psychological and physical wellbeing of people thereby reducing their quality of life. This assignment will discuss dementia, one of the most common mental health conditions in the UK in young people. This assignment will present a statistical database on dementia in young people in the UK. Here this assignment will present a critical discussion on how service users are supported and assisted throughout their treatment and recovery by the mental health care providers. Then the assignment will present a comprehensive discussion on how dementia impacts young service users in the UK and how this mental health condition can interfere with the ability of these service users to perform the activities of daily living.

Statistics of dementia in young people (under 18) in the UK:

NHS (2019) mentioned that dementia is a neurological health condition that is strongly associated with the progressive impairment of thinking ability, memory, decision making and cognitive skill (NHS, 2019). Service users who live with dementia in the UK are reported to suffer from a cognitive impairment that impacts adversely on the ability to perform the activities of daily livings (ADL). There are more than 850,000 people in the UK who live with dementia. Dementia costs £26 billion to NHS in a year (NHS, 2019). The statistical database shows that in the UK more than 1.3% of young people suffer from dementia that reduces their overall living standard and quality of life (www.dementiastatistics.org, 2021). The recent database also shows that two-thirds of the young people aged under 18 years live with dementia.

Impacts of dementia on young people in the UK:

While critically discussing the impacts of dementia on service users it is important to present a comprehensive discussion on how this mental health condition poses adverse impacts on the holistic wellbeing of people. As mentioned by Hall and Sikes (2017) dementia is a common mental health condition in young service users under 18 years. Which leads to poor concentration, short-time memory loss, disorientation, poor decision-making and lack of problem-solving skills. Dementia UK (2019) mentioned that dementia leads to the poor psychological wellbeing of service users which not only impacts their regular activities but also impacts adversely on their social and personal life (NHS, 2019). In the UK, young service users who live will dementia suffer from different psychological health conditions, such as difficulties in recognising names of people, poor motor and intelligence skills, depression, anxiety, loneliness, hallucination and mood swings (Cations et al. 2017). Although Sikes and Hall (2018.) argued that there is no proper evidence that mood swing is only associated with dementia, rather there is strong evidence that service users with bipolar disorders suffer from mood disorders and mood swing. As mentioned by Novek and Menec (2021)., while it comes to young people aged under 18, dementia causes many changes in their behaviour, psychology, social functioning, relationships with other people, motivation, decision making, problem solving and skills in performing daily activities (Giebel et al. 2020). In the UK there is more than 42,000 young people who live with the young onset of dementia suffer from these changes which pose challenges to the ability of service users to live a happy, healthy and quality life.

As mentioned by Mayrhofer et al. (2020), based on the services users’ perspectives on how dementia impacts their behaviour and psychology, it is reported that the majority of the young people living with dementia show behavioural changes such as arrogance, lack of patients, excitements, anxiety and abnormal thoughts. A recent health survey in the UK by WHO (2019) mentioned that large numbers of service users suffering from dementia have reported developing aggressive behaviour which impacts their social life and relationship with partners, parents, family members and friends (www.dementiastatistics.org, 2021). In this context, Farina et al. (2020) mentioned that in case of the young people aged under 18 years, dementia makes people highly vulnerable to have abnormal thinking such as committing suicide or harming others. NHS (2019) mentioned that in the case of young people dementia poses adverse impacts on the listening and working behaviour thereby reducing the concentration to listen to other’s viewpoints and also reducing their ability in attending social gatherings (NHS, 2019).

As stated by Stamou et al. (2021), dementia interferes with the social well-being of young people. In case of teenagers, dementia pose barriers and challenges to live a healthy social life such as they avoid to attend any occasions, parties and school, meeting. The young people which are under 18 are reported to have severe bullying, discrimination, abuse and bias in their school and society which not only impacts their emotional and spiritual wellbeing but also sometimes it can be deadly as many teenagers develop a tendency to commit suicide to get rid of all these miseries in their life (Novek and Menec, 2021).

Dementia adversely impacts the personality and psychology of young service users. In the UK, the majority of young people (more than 23%) who live with dementia have a high risk of Alzheimer disease which leads to severe cognitive impairment (NHS, 2019). Cognitive impairment leads to abnormal thinking, lack of decision making, lack of probe solving, poor concertation and poor memorising ability (Giebel et al. 2020). Evidence-based reports also suggest that in the case of young people who are under 18 years there is a high risk of personality disorders that make them have abnormal; inflexible and absurd behaviour and activities (Stamou et al. 2021). Young people suffering from dementia who are diagnosed with personality disorders are neglected by society. It is evident that young people living with dementia in the UK are reported to face several challenges in their life such as social unsupportiveness, neglects, harm and poor relation with family and neighbours (Farina et al. 2020). On the other hand, service users in the UK who suffer from dementia are reported to face several challenges in their professional and personal life. In professional life young people under 18 generally are excluded from any friend’s group due to their abnormal behaviour and activities. As mentioned by Mayrhofer et al. (2020), many young service users in the UK reported facing a situation in which people treat them as criminal and dangerous people and always try to make a self-distance from them. Even, these young people suffering from dementia face several challenges in family life, such as they are neglected and avoided by their parents and family members while comes to attend any function social occasion (Thorsen et al. 2020). Many teenagers who are diagnosed with dementia are reported to be told by parents to stay in their room and not go to guest’s rooms. All these social and family attitudes that young service users face reduce their self-confidence and self-esteem that pose barriers to the treatment process to develop positive care outcomes.

In the case of young people under 18, the physiological impacts of dementia are more severe as compared to those in the aged people (Johannessen et al. 2017). In the UK, the loss of continence in faeces and urine is common. Young men are at more risk of this incontinence of urines and faeces as comer to the young women. Wawrziczny et al. (2017) mentioned that, although there is no clear evidence regarding the reasons behind the relationship between dementia and incontinence of urines and faeces., many researchers suggest that this physiological condition occurs due to poor orientation lack of decision making and abnormal thinking of people which reduces their control on the urine faeces. Young people with dementia in the UK are reported to experience recurrent falls, due to their lack of concentration while they cross the roads or walking through the footpath. Evidence suggests that many cases have been registered in the UK in which young people under 18 fracture their collar bone or get a head injury due to fall which resulted from their disorientation and lack of ability to take right decision while they are involved in any work (Giménez-Llort and Johansson, 2021).

Supports that service users with dementia get from mental health providers

Mental health providers can support service users (young people under 18) in many ways to fasten their recovery by determining their personalised needs and providing them with high-quality treatment (Giebel et al. 2020). While it comes to support young service users to reduce and manage the impacts of dementia on service users, mental health providers need to conduct an effective need assessment. NICE (2019) recommend that an effective and relevant need assessment framework needs to be developed and implemented to determine the personalised needs of young people who suffer from dementia (NICE, 2019). Through effective need assessment, mental health providers can determine the psychological, physiological, emotional, relationship, social and spiritual needs of services users. As mentioned by Hall and Sikes (2017), health and social care staffs who work with mentally ill people can provide the right emotional, physical and psychological support to the dementia people that service users need to improve their quality of living. for meeting the personalized needs of young people with dementia in the UK, mental health providers can work in association with the different statutory and voluntary mental health organisations such as Dementia UK, Alzheimer’s society, UK, NHS and NGOs, which will support the young people with dementia in the UK to get any kind of help from the official of these organisation (Cations et al. 2017). Mental health social workers support these services users by empowering them to fulfil their mental health rights and get all the governmental facilities regarding improving the quality of living

Mental health providers not only determine the personalised needs of service users living with dementia but also develop and implement effective ways to meet these needs thereby supporting these service users to promote the quality of life (Giebel et al. 2020). In the UK young people with dementia get support from mental health workers in terms of undertaking regular counselling, cognitive behavioural therapies and psychotherapies (NHS, 2019). All these therapies are proved to be highly effective in not only improve the cognitive skill, decision making and intelligence levels of young people but also improve self-confidence in becoming self-dependent in terms of interacting with people or attending any social gathering (Farina et al. 2020). In terms of meeting the social needs of dementia people in the society, all the officials of the statutory and voluntary mental health organisations need to work collaboratively to raise the concern, awareness and support in the society towards dementia people (Stamou et al. 2021). By conducting the dementia awareness campaign, governmental mental health organisations in the UK can improve the behaviour, attitude, and gesture of society people towards the young people under 18 who have bitter experiences due to having dementia

Mental health providers support and meet the physical health needs of the service users with dementia by conducting timely and right diagnoses (Stamou et al. 2021). While providing high-quality treatment to young people with dementia mental health providers in the UK support the health needs of services users by developing early recognition and response system (Novek and Menec, 2021). Under this process, all the mental health providers make regular observations of dementia people thereby noticing any changes or symptoms of behavioural change. Any changes in the attitude and behaviour of services users are immediately reported to the higher healthcare authority for providing immediate clinical support to services users.

Mental health providers support young service users with dementia by providing accurate clinical assistance, counselling facilities, dementia-related information during providing treatment and improving the self-confidence of service users (Stamou et al. 2021). Service users which suffer from dementia get valuable support from mental health providers in terms of receiving proofer health education which improves services users; knowledge and understanding of the cause, risk factors impacts and effective management of dementia (Farina et al. 2020). Mental health providers work in partnership with the service users, their families and identify the needs and pain of service users thereby setting an effective care plan based on this assessment to meet these needs accordingly (Thorsen et al. 2020). On the other hand, mental health practitioners work in a multidisciplinary team to maintain better communication among the different types of mental health agencies thereby supporting the health needs of dementia patients thereby promoting their holistic wellbeing.

Services users suffering from dementia lo get a high level of support from the officials of the local mental health organisations in terms of being protected from any kind of harassment, abuse, harm, neglects in society (Johannessen et al. 2017). All mental health providers provide a safeguarding environment to dementia patients thereby protecting them from any kind of abuse and harm.

Conclusion:

From the above-mentioned discussion, it can be concluded that there are different types of mental health illnesses in society, mental health conditions are the illness that impacts the cognitive skill and psychological aspects of people. Dementia is the most common mental health condition which is associated with short term memory loss, poor concentration, lack of decision making and problem-solving and disorientation. In the case of young people under 18, dementia has severe impacts on the physical psychological, social and emotional wellbeing of people. Mental health practitioners work with families and people suffering from dementia thereby supporting the needs and meeting these needs to promote their holistic wellbeing.

Looking for further insights on Understanding Dementia: Causes, Symptoms, and Impact? Click here.

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