Background: Dementia is a chronic disease and it is one of Sweden's largest public health deseases. This means that more people with dementia will probably need to be cared for in hospitals, which may place higher demands on hospital care and especially for nurses. Within the hospital environment, there are many difficulties and challenges that can arise in the care of people with dementia. Based on the nurse's approach, caring is the core of nursing, which can lead to the nurse experiencing challenges in meeting the nursing needs of people with dementia in the hospitals' somatic care wards.

Aim: To investigate the nurse's experiences of caring for patients with dementia in somatic hospital care.

Method: A literature review was conducted according to Friberg's method description, where eleven qualitative original articles were included from the databases CINAHL Complete and PubMed.

Results: After the analysis of the articles, the nurses 'positive and negative experiences were identified according to the nurse's lack of knowledge that affected the nurses' approach to communication, the care relationship and ethical aspects as well as challenges of caring for patients with dementia. These were grounded by the hospital's physical environment and the lack of time that prevails within the hospitals.

Conclusion: Nurses lacked knowledge and skills regarding dementia care. The results indicate that in-depth knowledge about dementia disease better equips nurses to be able to contribute with good care.