Providing care to the dementia elderly with behavioral problem is a major issue in nursing homes today. This study was aimed to explore the nursing staffs' response to aggressive dementia patients, and the effect that the aggressive behavior had on Nsgstaff. The interviews used a semi-structured questionnaire are were carried out from May to July, 1999. The subjects were 23 nursing personnel working in the nursing homes for dementia elderly. The result are as follows; 1. The types of aggressive behavior cited by the subjects was "physical", "linguistic", and "sexual". 2. The factors that caused the behavior were "symptoms of disease", "under- conditioning", "context of nursing care", "unsatisfied need", "relationship to other patients", "change of outer environment", and "invasion of one's own privacy". 3. The response of the subjects were "unhappiness", "stress", "anger", "exaggeration", "anxiety", and "fear". 4. The management strategies listed by nursing personnel used to alleviate aggressive behavior were "ignorance" "patience" "leaving the area" "soothing sounds" "verbal punishment" "restriction and isolation" and "various management skill appliance" "adaptation". 5. The effect that aggressive behavior and were "disturbance of relationship to elderly" "decline in the amount and quality of nursing care" "interruption of task performance" "job exhaustion" "desire to leave the job" "physical impact" "stress on the cognition of others" "anxiety about health and one own future" "interference to family life'. The findings of this study will be useful in understanding the difficulties of nursing personnel when confronting the aggressive behavior of dementia partients. It also is useful as basic data in preparing efficient intervention program for these difficulties.
This study was to develop an aromatherapy hand massage program, and to evaluate the effects of lavender aromatherapy on cognitive function, emotion, and aggressive behavior of elderly with dementia of the Alzheimer's type.
The Research design was a nonequivalent control group non-synchronized quasiexperimental study. Lavender aromatherapy was administrated to experimental group I for 2 weeks, jojoba oil massage was administrated to experimental group II for 2 weeks, and no treatment was administrated to the control group for 2 weeks. Data was analyzed using the chi-square-test, ANOVA, repeated measures of ANCOVA and ANCOVA in the SPSS program package.
1. Experimental group I did not show significant differences in cognitive function in relation to the experimental group II and control group. 2. Experimental group I showed significant differences in emotion and aggressive behavior in relation to the experimental group II and control group.
A Lavender aromatherapy hand massage program is effective on emotions and aggressive behavior of elderly with dementia of the Alzheimer's type.