Mental Health Nursing: Dementia & Agitation
Follow along with this series of vignettes where nurses interact with clients experiencing a wide range of mental health challenges. In each situation there are two scenarios, the novice scenario helps students to see and anticipate some of the more common errors that a student nurse may make when first dealing with these clients. In contrast the expert scenario shows students how a mental health nurse with more advanced skills and knowledge would handle these situations. This series of examples is a valuable learning tool for nurses preparing to enter the mental health field. It can be very challenging for mental health nurses to care for persons with dementias like Alzheimer's disease. In this pair of vignettes, a novice tries to comfort and re-orient an older man with dementia in a nursing home. Then we witness how a more experienced nurse is able to help the older man feel much less anxious about his current situation. A second set of vignettes demonstrates some of the skills and techniques needed when caring for a person with severe anxiety. 
