i need help for Cognitive Disturbances

[negative]

hi all,

i need a little help in this project im in, as my group had chosen cognitive disturbances. just wondering does it means that there is disturbances to the thinking, understanding, reasoning, knowledge, and intellectual capacity of the patient who is suffering from this?!

i had been researching in the net, but i just can't find any specific definition about cognitive disturbances. so i need some sharing friends to help here.

and what actually can affect the cognitive disturbances.

does dipolar disorder/ schizophrenics and parkinson's disease

actually affect the cognitive??

seriously need help!

regards,

negative

[color=#80c0ff]when we do the best that we can,

we never know what miracle is wrought in our life,

or in the life of another. :)

the darkest hour is just before the dawn:redpinkhe

[EricJRN, MSN, RN]

When I think of cognitive disturbances, irrational thinking is what comes to mind for me. You will certainly see that in bipolar mania and schizophrenia, but even depression and eating disorders can be associated with some irrational thoughts.

That's strictly what I associate with the term. You will get a more exact definition from nursing texts and scientific literature.

[Daytonite, BSN, RN]

Cognition is the awareness and use of the abilities of

• reasoning
  
• judgment
  
• intuition
  
• memory

in order to have insight into what is happening around them. A disturbance in cognition would be

• incapacity
  
• powerlessness
  
• lack of skill
  
• incompetence
  
• or, inefficiency

to use one or more of those abilities. Coma (incapacity to use any abilities of awareness) is one patient state that comes to mind. But, so is someone who goes about assaulting others when they don't get what they want (lack of skill or incompetent in the use of judgment).

One nursing diagnosis that addresses this is Disturbed Thought Processes. However, NANDA is going to retire this diagnosis next year because it has been kind of a catch all diagnosis and the related factors for it were never fully developed. There are three main related factors or etiologies for disturbed thought processes (cognitive disturbance):

• organic brain changes (this is physiologic)
  
• mental illness
  
• changes in physical health (Ex: decreased oxygen to the brain as in the hypoxemia of COPD, effects of drugs)

The plan is to diagnose patients into more specified nursing problems.

I brought this up to help explain to you how broad the subject of cognitive disturbance is and that it covers a lot of territory and medical conditions. For the behavioral and psych stuff you need to look in a psych textbook or a psych care plan book (there actually is one in publication). A student posted a link to an online appendix to her psych nursing textbook, I believe it was a few months ago, that I have spent the last hour trying to find to no avail. It had good information about the psych diagnoses on it.

Hope that gives you some direction. I am not a big lover of psychosocial diagnoses and it is not my area of expertise. I was a med/surg nurse.