Altered Cognition as Physiological or Psychological Response - Article Example

Altered Cognition Altered cognition is physiological or psychological response brought about by physical or mental changes by the body due to changes in the environment. There are various cognition impairments that bring about changes physical and mental state of a patient or person. One of these causes is called delirium that is a response to psychological changes. Delirium is a disturbance that affects the consciousness. It consists of content that relies on communication of the cerebral hemispheres and upper brain stem governs arousal that greatly affects the consciousness. Thus disturbance in consciousness occur when disease processes interrupt the functioning of content, arousal and communication between all of them. Delirium is rather a clinical entity due to an underlying medical condition and resolves with treatment of the underlying disorder. Hypoactive form of delirium is often characterized by lethargy and psychomotor retardation and may lead to depression in most patients who may suffer from this form of delirium. Hyperactive form may involve disorientation, memory impairment, psychomotor agitation and disturbances in the sleep wake cycle which may be interpreted as dementia or hypomania in clinical practicum. (Salmond & Pickard, 2005) There are several causes that may lead to persons having delirium mostly advanced age, dementia, bacterial infection, polypharmacy, chronic disease, surgery and use of glasses or hearing aids. Diagnosis of dementia usually requires symptoms to have been present for six months or even longer. Acute mental status changes can be classified as either structural or toxic metabolic in nature that may greatly cause delirium. If the surgeries are also not performed in a proper manner as supposed to, then the person undergoing the surgery may have infections due to improper hygiene during the whole procedures. These infections may lead to disorders or mental disturbances that will affect the patients who keep on feeling pain and irritations in the affected places. Bacterial infections may also lead to mental disturbance and hormonal imbalance due to the healing processes that take place. Use of hearing aids or glasses requires a lot of focus and attention in order to use them properly. This may lead to mental disturbance because without this aids one has to strain in order to see or hear that involves a lot of concentration by the brain. Chronic diseases also affects the mental performance of a person so much because the patient will keep on graving in pain causing a lot of mental disturbances most of the time. Cognitive assessment alone is not reliable for making a diagnosis of delirium because a below normal score can be caused by dementia, unwillingness to cooperate and inability to communicate. One of the most common causes of cognitive disorder is drug toxicity or overdose. (Hickey, 2002) The diagnosis or cures for delirium are Mental status screening tests that should be done to ensure that the parts of the brain that are affected are diagnosed at an early stage before the infections or damages become enormous. If the diseases are not treated at an early stage they may lead to growth or brain tumors that have devastating effects that could lead to death hence early detections should prevent the mental disturbances. A survey was conducted that showed that adults with delirium were one point five times more likely to be hospitalized than those patients without delirium. These cognitive disorders are mostly prone to adults and the ageing people because they are more exposed to many environmental factors that the body is not able to fight back. The doctors can also prescribe some drugs or medicine to you that can fight the diseases like thiamine, naloxone and glucose. The doctor can prescribe thiamine if Wernicke’s encephalopathy is suspected in cases of alcoholism but glucose should always be administered first. Naloxone is also used in cases of suspected Opioid intoxication in the patient. The doctor can also perform some laboratory tests to the patients that may include coagulation studies creatinine. Other tests may also include blood cultures, urinalysis and chest radiography. Urinalysis monitors the urine of the patients to see composition of the products that are being secreted to that to determine the hormonal balance that is taking place in the body of the patient. The blood is also checked for its composition so as to be able to know the extent of changes that are taking place in the body. Radiography also checks the extent to which the chest has been affected by the environment including any infections. (Hickey, 2002) There are some key features of the cognitive disorder delirium that include disturbance of consciousness with reduced ability to maintain or be able to focus attention on anything. The patient is not able to concentrate on something because each and every time he tries to pay attention the mind is disturbed by some external factors. Memory deficit or perceptual disturbance that is not well accounted for by existing dementia may lead to some changes or disorders in cognition. At times disturbance can be developed over a short period of time, days or hours and may have a fluctuant nature over this time. Some medical conditions based on some evidence from the history, physical examination and laboratory tests are also likely to cause disturbance to the consciousness. (Brown & Holt, 1983) The metabolic abnormalities may also lead to altered cognition that has been revealed through laboratory studies showing electrolyte imbalances in patients. Patients with conditions such as diabetes mellitus, chronic renal failure, chronic liver disease and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease are at increased risk for development of metabolic disturbances that lead to mental disturbances. Acid base disturbances may also lead to metabolic abnormalities due to hormonal imbalances that may try to neutralize the acid and thus may lead to drowsiness or forgetfulness. Some of these abnormalities may also be caused by the mental state one is most likely to be into like one is experiencing stress or is having some depression over something. Uremia may be encountered in patients presenting at all acute care practices and patients will display confusion, asterixis, muscle twitching, hallucination, and seizures when it comes to some extreme cases. The person may be confused and may loose self awareness of what he is doing at the present but comes to realize of it later. Hallucination means that the patient may have imaginations that are not realistic but they may seem real to him unlike to others who do not see them or understand of what he or she is talking about. (Salmond & Pickard, 2005) Diagnosis for metabolic abnormalities may include electrolyte balances that may include use of drugs to be able to cause some balance in the hormonal system in a patient. Diabetes mellitus may also be prevented through sugar balance levels in the body so that the patient does not incur some low sugar level or high sugar levels. The toxic waste that may cause some renal problems should not be so acidic so as to prevent any renal infections that may affect the urinary bladder from discharging the wastes. The acidic levels should also be balanced to avoid chronic liver diseases from taking place because the acid may cause the liver to fail hence the patient may die or have the liver replaced. If there is a proper balance in these metabolic processes in the patient then we are not likely to have any abnormalities in the body. Diabetic patients also require correction of dehydration and hypovolemia. They should also ensure they take a lot of fluids in their body so that their system does not become dehydrated but it should be able to secrete its waste easily so that there is no toxication in the body. Some drugs may also be given so that they can detoxicate the body incase the patients hormone are not able to detoxicate the body automatically. This will affect the person mentally because one will have unrest and cannot be able to settle down at one place. Most patients are mentally disturbed and tend to be confused until they are treated. Therefore the performance of the brain and body is affected by the imbalances in the body hence they incur disorder in cognitive. (Lubkin & Larson, 2002) High attitude exposure is a cognitive disorder that may induce changes in psychological and physiological responses of a person. Some people are so afraid of heights or high attitude areas and this fear becomes a limiting factor for normal and mental performance of persons who suffer from this disorder. This high altitude exposure may bring about symptoms such as insomnia, headache, dizziness and deterioration in higher cerebral functions that are manifested at first. At an altitude of about three thousand meters, some substantial impairment in a number of cognitive performance, mental skills, memory, reaction time, logical reasoning and vigilance is observed in persons. Some people may experience severe headaches when exposed to high attitude due to the force of gravity that may affect the balance of a person hence the mental performance is affected. Patients are also affected or disturbed mind wise because they keep on having fears that they are going to fall or something is going to happen to them. (Lubkin & Larson, 2002) Dizziness is also experienced by some people at high attitudes because their mental state is disturbed by the fear of high attitude and the gravity tends to cause some instability hence resulting to imbalance of mind state. At times the mind will act as if it has come to a halt and it may seem as if one is not able to think at that particular moment. This may be termed as deterioration of higher cerebral functions of the brain such that the brain is not active at that moment due to the fear of heights or high attitudes. Insomnia can also be termed as restlessness by a person due to that fear of the high attitude or heights. A person can become so restless because of the fear that he will fall or that one could stumble down and fall down. Most of the people become so restless such that they vomit or may feel so dizzy especially while traveling in a plane at first time for most of the people. The upward force caused by the plane that could be ascending and the descending force may also affect some mental state of some people. For this reason some people are so afraid of traveling in planes and thus they tend to avoid high attitudes that make them restless. (Herfindal & Gourley, 2003) These cognitive disorders can be diagnosed or treated mostly through counseling to be able to remove that big fear that people may be having over high attitudes. People who are afraid of high attitude should be able to see a counselor who will be able to tell them on how to overcome this fear that they have in them by maybe not looking down, avoid taking drinks while traveling in the plane and frequent visit to high attitude areas in order to get used to this heights. If they frequently visit high attitude areas or travel in planes they will get used to and eventually the fear will go away. Some drugs like painkillers should also be taken before visiting high attitude areas so that one does not have this severe headaches incase they frequently affect him or her. For those people who frequently suffer from dizziness, they should be accompanied by someone so that incase they feel dizzy and faint someone is around them to assist in any way. Drugs that cause dizziness should also be avoided in any way while going to high attitude areas so that one cannot start feeling dizzy and suffer insomnia. Most of the drugs have drowsy or dizzy effect while consumed and it’s thus recommended that you avoid taking these drugs while going to high attitude areas or while traveling. (Herfindal & Gourley, 2003) These factors affect the physical and mental state of people meaning that they cause some cognition impairment that can largely be classified in any clinical research. Most of these impairments can result to devastating effects and thus regular treatment or monitory should be done over the patient to prevent enormous effects. Early detections of any of these disorders should be treated early enough so as to avoid growth of problem that cannot be treated at later stage. Tests should be done on patients suffering and disorders and treatment done to improve these cognitive responses. (Herfindal & Gourley, 2003) Application Letter To The Department of Health and Human Suffering Dear Sir/Madam, Ref: Application for a Job as a Nurse I hereby submit my application for a vacancy as a nurse in your reputable department that caters for the rapidly ageing academics with multiple physical and mental health issues. Having completed my BN program at SCu, having in my mind that Nursing is my career of choice which is referred to as a profession that is usually focused on the offering help to individuals who are said to be ill, disabled and those that of old age, with an ambition of regaining, achieving and maintaining a better health status. It is also used in the prevention of illnesses that occur in the society by providing education and information on the illness to the people, so that they may be able to prevent themselves from the infection. It’s actually an art and science that is used in maintaining a better life of an individual from the beginning to the end. The professionals under this career have the opportunity of working in various areas including hospitals, home, schools and also pharmaceutical industries whereby they usually work as consultants to the provision of health care in the society. This profession has a number of specialties through whereby I am provided with an opportunity of working as a psychiatric nurse, where I will be practicing the caring of the people with mental health problems, pediatric nurse where I will be able to specialize in the caring of children among other specialties in the profession. Since the nursing profession involves the interaction of the nursing practitioner with the clients, I am therefore required to undertake an undergraduate course in nursing through which I will receive a practical experience on the profession. Am also recommended to have an enormous knowledge in communication and an artistic mind that will help me to raise and solve issues successfully. In case of management in this profession, I will be given a chance to carry out a nursing care plan and a nursing diagnosis where I will be expected to give the stated results to the patients. This goes hand in hand with the nursing interventions whose main objective is to help the ill person to get well. This step is consequently supposed to be done with a great care by being specific, recognizing how often the care practice should be done and also if the care plan is read and understood easily while following the specified directions. I also understand that, under the case management I will be asked to carryout the evaluation process which is to be done basing on the date that was set. This evaluation is always done with an ambition of ensuring whether the patient was able to meet the goal of the care plan; it is also used by the nursing practitioner to determine whether the care plan is to be sustained or to be ended. The advantage with this profession is that, being a nurse I will be able to receive my compensation from the payment made by the patients requiring particular nursing care. The other benefit that I will have is that of intermingling with other health professionals who are believed to be of higher rank in the general public and through this I will be able to improve my nursing skills. Being a nurse I will be expected to engage in managerial activities particularly in the nursing section of any healthcare. Reference Black, J. & Hawks, J. (2004): Clinical management for positive outcomes: W.B. Saunders Publishers Canobbio, M. & Tucker, S. (2000): Patient care standards: Collaborative planning and Nursing intervention: Mosby Publication. Derstine, J. & Hargrove, S. (2000): Comprehensive rehabilitation nursing: W.B. Saunders Publication Edwards, P. & Hertzberg, D. (1999): Pediatric rehabilitation nursing: W.B. Saunders Publication Perry, A. & Potter, P. (2003): Clinical nursing skills & techniques: Mosby Publication. Read More