Nursing Tools and Strategies to Assess Cognition and Confusion - Book Report/Review Example

The main focus of the article was to evaluate the patient’s mental status and its importance for the nursing practice. The article seems to be beneficial for bedside nursing since it tends to provide mental health evaluation system.

It can be mentioned that cognition can be defined as the mental process that is involved in acquiring knowledge that also includes thinking, knowing, remembering, judging as well as problem-solving. It can be identified that the health care professionals access to the terms such as “confused” and “disoriented” while they are depicting the cognitive deficits and the levels of consciousness. However, these terms seem to be quite vague and are not capable of describing the actual symptoms that are experienced by the patients. Numerous studies on a similar topic have demonstrated that there is a contradiction in the view of the word confusion and thus it is this inconsistency that can lead to a misconception of the patient’s symptoms. Therefore, it is quite significant on part of the healthcare professional to take due care and thus understand the symptoms of the patients (Aird & McIntosh, 2004). 

The two terms namely delirium and dementia are taken into consideration for the purpose of understanding the cognitive deficiencies. The article suggests the use of standardized tools such as the confusion assessment method for the purpose of evaluating delirium (Fick & Mion, 2007). The article concludes by demonstrating that it is quite vital for health care professionals to identify the regular change in the mental status of the patients for the purpose of maintaining their safety.

The article is quite effective at identifying the issues related to the patient’s mental state. It has tried to identify the role that nurses play in observing and evaluating the degree of the cognitive functioning of the patients. It provides the bedside nurses with the necessary mental health assessment techniques. The article discusses the negligence of the health care professional in adequately evaluating the cognitive status and thus also tries to focus upon the impact that such negligence may have upon the mental status of the patient. It suggests the ways through which the patient’s safety, as well as dignity, can be maintained. The article has been beneficial in throwing light upon the term cognition and confusion in the context of health care. It has given due attention to the safety and health of the patients and suggested ways through which the safety and health of the patients can be enhanced.

The article seems to have been explained in an explicit way and the author seems to have explored the disparities that lie between confusion and cognition. Numerous cognitive evaluation tools have been suggested subsequently. The article observes that it is the mental harm that may lead to physical impairment of the patient as well. It is effective at describing the ill effects that the negligence of healthcare professionals can have upon the health of patients with mental disorders. The article suggests that nurses have a great role to play in assessing the health of such patients and thus providing regular care so that their early recovery is possible.                                                        

It can be described that the information contained in the article is pertinent; however, there is a requirement of a comprehensive assessment for accurately planning the nursing care for the patients’ suffering from such disorders. Therefore, it can be worthy of mentioning that it is significant for the authors to research explicitly upon this article.

The cognitive deficiencies in patients tend to have an impact upon the patients’ ability to communicate. Therefore, the nurses are liable to understand such situations and thus aid the patient to recover as quickly as possible (Souder & Et. Al., 2004).