Comprehensive help for people with dementia
Families and professional caregivers know that caring for someone with dementia is a challenge. Intense mood swings, personality changes, confusion and aggression are often a fact of life. When these behaviors become unmanageable, caregivers often struggle to find a solution.
Virtua Memorial Hospital's inpatient geriatric psychiatric unit is the only one of its kind in the region that addresses all of the causes of acute dementia and offers on-site access to comprehensive hospital care. Virtua's board-certified geriatric psychiatrists have the expertise to stabilize the behavior of patients in crisis. They also have immediate access to a range of clinical resources required for some patients with dementia.
"Dementia has a variety of causes," says
John Case, MD, medical director of behavioral health services at Virtua. "Alzheimer's disease is probably the most common, but vascular disease like stroke, malnutrition and vitamin deficiencies, head trauma, and alcohol abuse can also cause dementia."
In addition, many conditions can present with symptoms similar to dementia; these include medication side effects, many kinds of infections, and dehydration.