Britain is a diverse and multicultural society - Essay Example

Such people experience multiple problems and disabilities and are often in need of complex packages of treatment and social care. These are very often not forthcoming as and when required. This situation gives rise to many issues for the families of such aged and for the professionals who are supposed to care for them. Hospitals still maintain a discriminatory allocation of resources amongst various ailments affecting the old.For instance high quality care is provided in terms of inpatient hospice and palliative care for people with cancer, whereas dementia diagnoses suffer neglect mostly.

Older people suffering from dementia pose complex problems and disabilities, and also need systems of care that require partnership and collaboration between different groups of care providers in differing settings. Health care systems must be reoriented to develop empathy laced health care services to meet the medical and social needs of this group. Effective care must reach into the hospital, into people's homes and into nursing and residential homes within the community. This paper explores as to how multidisciplinary health care teams can improve care rendering systems, concerning dementia patients amongst old, by taking into account the physical, psychological and social aspects to improve discharge rates.

Medical 2. Rationale Medical world has fully realized that dementia is a major problem. Specifically in individual patients of 65 or more years in age, there is substantial morbidity and mortality that is often managed badly; for the hospital there is delayed discharge and problems associated with nursing confused. And the incidence is very large in a globe that is fast ageing. Dementia debilitates 4% of people over the age of 70, which increases to an alarming 13% in case of those over the age of 80 (Hofman, 1991).

More telling is the fact that the median length of survival from diagnosis to death is eight years, and during this time there is a progressive deterioration in ability and awareness. Many ethical issues become relevant as present medical systems get about the care of people with dementia who are, often, not even able to communicate their wishes (Albinsson & Strang, 2003). For instance, some current issues include the best use of antibiotics in the treatment of pneumonia and of feeding tubes for hydration and nutrition.

However, less than 1% of patients in inpatient hospices have dementia as their primary diagnosis (Christakis, 1996).The enormity of the issue become clear as one considers that it is conservatively estimated that there are about 700,000 dementia patients in UK alone. It has been long established that the incidence of dementia increases with age and is thought to double every five to six years after the age of 65. The health and social care of dementia patients in UK costs a staggering 1bn and more annually.

Some estimates project that by 2020 UK would have about one million dementia patients. Given the acuteness of the disease, given that it affects mostly old and that present system addresses the task inadequately it is only pertinent that this paper examines a multidisciplinary system which is