Dementia in Saudi Arabia

Dementia in Saudi Arabia

Describe the health-related problem you have chosen to cover.

World Health Organization describes dementia as a syndrome that typically is of a progressive or chronic nature. This type of mental illness involves deterioration in cognitive function, such as the ability of thought processing beyond what is likely to be a result of usual aging. The disorder impacts thinking, memory, comprehension, orientation, learning capacity, calculation, judgment, and language. Nevertheless, it does not affect the consciousness of an individual. Cognitive function impairment is, in most cases, accompanied and also occasionally preceded by the deterioration of social behavior, emotional control, or motivation. Taking into consideration the aging population, it is challenging to distinguish between the mental illness effects from those of dementia. In most cases, dementia will present itself, especially among the elderly population via impaired reasoning, loss of memory, and changes of personality. The seniors are likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease and other types of dementia, and thus it is important to get a proper diagnosis to provide that proper treatment is achieved.

Dementia is established as resulting from multiple illnesses and injuries that secondarily impact the brain, including stroke or Alzheimer’s disease. The disorder is also established as one of the primary causes of dependency and disability among elderly individuals across the world. Dementia can be overwhelming both for the individuals identified as having the disease, as well as their families and carers. The majority of people lack understanding and awareness regarding dementia, and this results in barriers to care and diagnosis and stigmatization. The effect of dementia, son’s family, carers, and society as a whole can be psychological, physical, economic, and social.

Describe who is most at risk of the problem in terms of relevant demographic characteristics (e.g., age, gender, sexual orientation, race/cultural group, etc.)

Dementia is not associated with a typical part of aging. Nevertheless, age is presented as the most well-known risk aspect of dementia. As you get older, the risk of suffering from dementia also increases. For instance, the Saudi Alzheimer’s Disease Association notes that one in 20 Saudis who are aged 65 years and above are found to have Alzheimer’s diseases. After the age of 65, the threat of Alzheimer’s disease development doubles approximately every five years. The body also states that Saudis, aged 85 years and above will most likely be diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Even though on rare occasions, dementia disorder can also affect individuals under the age of 65. This is commonly referred to as young-onset dementia. Young-onset dementia includes a situation where the symptoms start before the age of 65.

Based on gender, women are found to exhibit a higher risk of Alzheimer’s disease development compared to the male gender. There is an unclear rationale for the trend. However, some of the associated factors include women said to live longer on average compared to men as well as the estrogen changes over the lifetime of women.

Describe the geographic community where the health problem is most likely to occur.

World Health Organization established that dementia might be currently found in 36 million individuals of the global population, where a progressive escalation has been reported in the previous decades. The agency estimates that the recorded number is subject to double in the following 20 years. In the year 2015, the number of individuals with dementia across the world was reported at 44 million, but the population is anticipated to triple to approximately 115 million persons by the year 2050. Every year, approximately 4.6 million cases of dementia are reported, with the highest growth forecast established in china and the south Asian neighboring nations. Studies of epidemiological research have regularly demonstrated differences in the dementia rates among distinct ethnic and geographical populations. Lower rates of dementia are reported in anions, including those in Asia and Africa, compared to the number of dementia cases reported in North America and Europe.

The WHO also has provided a dementia report revealing an alarming escalation of dementia through the Middle Eastern region, where it notes that dementia prevalence may experience a 125 percent increase by the year 2050.  The population age in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is observed to shift toward the elderly age, which has the potential of causing an escalated risk of dementia disorder.

Health Determinant

There are a majority of factors that influence health. Health determinants include expansive social, personal, environmental as well as economic aspects that dictate personal and population health. One of the health determinants is socioeconomic status.

Social determinants of health are described as a particular group of economic and social elements that fall within the broader health determinants (Public Health Agency of Canada, 2019). The factors include the place of a person in society, such as education income and employment. Experiences such as racism, discrimination, and historical trauma are key health social determinants for a particular group. Social health determinants include situations where individuals are born, raised, work, live, and age. These conditions include elements such as education, socioeconomic status, physical and neighborhood environment, social support networks, employment, and healthcare access.

Economic stability includes factors such as income, employment, debt, expenses, support, medical bills. Physical and neighborhood environment is a social determinant of health, including housing, safety, playgrounds, transportation, among others. Education is a crucial determinant of health that cuts across language, literacy, higher education, vocational training, and early childhood education. The community and social context include factors such as support systems, social integration, discrimination, and stress (Public Health Agency of Canada, 2019). Further, social health determinants can include the system of healthcare, such as provider availability, health coverage, quality of care, as well as cultural competency and provider linguistic.

Socioeconomic status has been established as a likely threat aspect of dementia development. Primarily, low socioeconomic status is depicted to be linked to higher dementia prevalence, worse baseline cognitive functioning, as well as escalated psychiatric comorbidity (Public Health Agency of Canada, 2019). Education can play a significant role in enhancing cognitive reserve, which describes the ability of the brain to co.pe with damage that can potentially cause dementia.  The escalation in age, high medical comorbidity, low education as well as the low annual income are linked to dementia diagnosis.

Intervention of Dementia

According to Mayo Clinic, behavioral disturbances, including physical or verbal aggression, apathy, and agitation, comprise the considerably most challenging factors of dementia. They can potentially impact the majority of patients in the course of the patient’s illness. Negative behaviors are extremely distressing to caregivers and patients, and significantly diminish the quality of life and in most cases, contribute to caregiver burnout, acute hospitalizations, and early institutionalization. Instead of hospitalization and psychotropic medications, which are established as casing more harm than benefiting patients., care models usually emphasize quick therapy of the psychosocial, organic, and environmental aspects that contribute to difficult behaviors as well as management of symptoms through the use of non-pharmacological interventions. One of the interventions that can be applied in the case of dementia includes Reminiscence Therapy.

Individuals with Alzheimer’s disease and other dementia forms they exhibit slipping away of personal identity when the abilities of cognition decline. Even though such people may start to lose touch with the existing events, they may also tend to stick to cherished memories. Treasured songs, photographs, and favorite songs are preferred as they can assist in stimulating previous fond thoughts for individuals with dementia. The robust bond to familiar places and individuals forms the basis for a unique form of treatment that assists people with dementia remember their individual histories.

Reminiscence therapy is described as the treatment that makes use of all senses, including touch, sight, taste, sound, and smell, to help people with dementia recall people, events, and places, especially from their past lives. As part of the treatment, care partners can make use of objects in multiple operations to help people attain memory recall. The Reminiscence therapy components include simple operations, including conversation and more advanced clinical treatment, to assist in restoring memories from the past to the present awareness. Storytelling concerning the previous events can potentially help people with dementia feel less isolation and also feel more connected with the current.

There are numerous reasons for choosing Reminiscence therapy as an intervention for dementia, considering its associated benefits. In the majority of cases, recent memories are found to deteriorate first for individuals with Alzheimer’s disease. Through the sharing of memories that include the past through reminiscence therapy, individuals with dementia can potentially create considerably more positive feelings while at the same time reducing agitation and stress. Through the use of minimal prompting such as photos, simple questions, songs, or the use of family stories, persons with dementia are likely to recall memories from both young adulthood and childhood. Reminiscing concerning memories can potentially help individuals feel extremely confident in their abilities. It also gives them the opportunity of talking regarding what holds meaning for such people. Besides, conversation engagement concerning past events can offer relief from depression symptoms and boredom, and it assists in the preservation of family stories for future generations.

Reminiscence therapy can be used with a person with dementia to ensure that they tap into their long-run memory as well as relive their past pleasurable experiences. The first step will include assessing the community through a needs assessment to establish the dementia problem in society to develop strategies for addressing the issue. The next steps include the determination of the priorities and goal setting and the selection of the intervention strategies (Chapter 5). The selected intervention strategy includes reminiscence therapy that then should be implemented by identifying and collecting the required resources to execute and create the appropriate timeline for the execution (Chapter 5). The program will be evaluated to determine the long-run effects on health and the social results of the intervention. The evaluation will ensure that shorter-term, as well as system-level impacts, are considered, including community involvement, enhancement in organizational collaboration, capacity as well as healthier public settings or polices. Sustaining the outcomes of the community will include taking into consideration the long-run problem-solving capacity.

References

Chapter 5. Community Organizing/Building and Health Promotion Programming

Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC). (2019). Social determinants of health and health inequalities. https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/health-promotion/population-health/what-determines-health.html#determinants