Geripsych pros and cons..

I am currently working in psychiatry of old age and the unit I am on is for dementia with challenging behaviour. What kind of setting are you going to be working in?

I love it where I am - I have always loved working with people with cognitive impairment. I see my role as helping people to do as much for themselves as they can and to keep that going for as long as possible. I love spending time and talking with someone, keeping them occupied and doing activities that they enjoy. Going over a life story and seeing a memory coming, producing a smile and having fun. I feel they deserve our time!

There are down sides - where I am there is a lot of challenging behaviour and it can be upsetting for everyone. There will not be a lot of deep conversation and you know there is no other place for them to move on to apart from a nursing home when the challenging behaviour passes

One con of this population is that families seem to think we can magically change Dementia related behaviors with medications. Very frustrating. I hate that my Dementia patients are in "groups" that they don't get anything out of because their cognition is impaired... very sad and frustrating at times...