Nursing Staff’s Understanding Expressions of People With Advanced Dementia Disease

Abstract

People with advanced dementia disease (ADD) are known to have communication difficulties and thus it presents a challenge in understanding the expressions of these people. Because successful communication presupposes cooperation at least between 2 individuals, both individual’s actions must be acknowledged. The aim of this study is to describe nursing staff’s ways of understanding the expressions of people with ADD when communicating with them. Interviews from 8 nursing staff were analyzed using qualitative content analysis. Two themes were constructed: “Being in communication” and “Doing communication.” Being in communication means that nursing staff perceive people with ADD as being capable of communication. Doing communication means that nursing staff attempt different individualized strategies to understand what people with ADD communicate. Good care of people with ADD presupposes nursing staff that are willing and able to relate to other people and to maintain good care for people with ADD continuous education and supervision are needed.