Cathy Cress

Expert in Aging Life and Geriatric Care Management

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What are 8 Spiritual Quality Of Life Activities for Elders for theHoliday Season?

December 20, 2019

Spirituality Helps Elder Quality of Life Skyrocket  With on Holidays

Spirituality can matter more as you age. Now that we are entering a season of high spiritual celebrations like Christmas, Hanukkah, Orthodox Christmas, Feast day – Our Lady of Guadalupe-black-family-in-church.jpg this is the most important season to involve elders who wish to in spiritual communities. Religious communities offer socialization thus the quality of life to so many elders and can return joy their lives.

 

Religion Comes in a Filing Cabinet

Leonie Nowitz, a geriatric care manager who has a deep interest in spirituality and writes about it often, once told me to look at spirituality as a question  ” What is this all about”. As we age this question becomes primal, as we face death coming at a rapid pace. We wonder- do I go to heaven, to hell, or just energy or dust. Will I meet angels- my wife in heaven.?

Ms. Nowitz said that when you define religion, look at it as a filing cabinet with each drawer is a religion with it’s an answer to spirituality  ” “What Is this all About”. There is one for Jews, Protestants, Hindu’s Muslims, Quakers, The Environment- all religions and belief systems.

 

How to Find An Elder’s Holiday Joy

One assessment care managers can do is a Quality of Life assessment to find out where joy can be found again. If spirituality is something that would increase an elders’ quality of life, here are some activities that you may suggest to an older client or their family, especially on holidays when places of worship have their most spectacular music, smells, and bells and pageantry.

Spiritual Quality of Life Activities During Holidays

  1. If an older person appears isolated and is unable to attend their place a worship, especially on holidays, because of not driving or disability, and they wish to still join a congregation, contact the head of the religious group and ask if members could transport him or if they have a van service or arrange for members to transport them to services. If they cannot get out ask if the spiritual leader or congregation members would make home visits.
  2. If an older person is not now a part of a religious group but what once was and has some interest in returning, holidays are the best times to reconnect. Contact the head of the religious group and ask him/her to make a home visit and the care manager follow-up with transportation arrangements to holiday services if yes.
  3. If an older client has had a recent close relative or friend die and wishes to return to a spiritual group she knew before, connect them, with the congregation they are familiar with for solace or grieving.
  4. If an older person moves to a new area and is part of a religious group connect them to the same religion and place of worship in the new town and arrange transportation  to holiday services and a new member to greet them
  5. If an older person has dementia if possible reconnect him or her with his spiritual background through familiar prayer, music, etc.  
  6. If an elder has dementia and can attend services without being disruptive, arrange for a caregiver to take them as they can still be drawn in  by the ” Smells and Bells’
  7. If you have a homebound client who wishes to return to a religious group, reconnect them by arranging, in their,  holiday spiritual music, religious icons (a rosary or image, for example), readings from a sacred text about their own religion on Hannakka or Christmas , watching a service on television, listening to one on the radio or via computer.
  8. Decorate their room with holiday decoration that represents their own religious holiday like a Menorah, Christmas tree, a nativity scene, etc.

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Filed Under: Aging, Aging Family, Aging Life Care, aging life care manager, Blog, care manager, case manager, Dementia Activities, Dementia and Spirituality, elder care manager, Families, Geriatric Care Manager, geriatric care manager, geriatric social worker, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, Quality of Life, Spiritual Quality of Life Tagged With: aging life care manager, assessing for quality of life, care manager, case manager, demential and spirituality, geriatric care manager, nurse care manager, spirital assessment, spiritual assessment, spiritual supports in aging, spirituality in aging

What are 7 Spiritual Quality Of Life Activities for Elders in the Coming Holiday Season?

July 20, 2018

 

Now that we are entering a season of high spiritual celebrations like Christmas, Hannaka, Orthodox Christmas, Feast day – Our Lady of Guadalupe-black-family-in-church.jpg this is the most important season to involve elders in spiritual communities. Religious communities offer socialization thus the quality of life to so many elders and can return joy their lives.

Leonie Nowitz, a geriatric care manager who has a deep interest in spirituality and writes about it often, once told me to look at spirituality as a question  ” What is this all about”. As we age this question becomes primal, as we face death coming at a rapid pace. We wonder- do I go to heaven, to hell, or just energy or dust. Will I meet angels- my wife in heaven.?

Ms. Nowitz said that when you define religion, look at it as a filing cabinet with each drawer is a religion with it’s answer to spirituality  ” “What Is this all About”. There is one for Jews, Protestants, Hindu’s Muslims, Quakers, The Environment- all religions and belief systems.

One assessment care managers can do is a Quality of Life assessment to find out where joy can be found again. If spirituality is something that would increase an elders quality of life, here are some activities that you may suggest to an older client or their family.

Spiritual Quality of Life  Activities

  1. If an older person appears isolated and is unable to attend their place a worship because of not driving or disability, and they wish to still join a congregation, contact the head of the religious group and ask if members could transport him or if they have a van service or arrange for members to transport them to services. If they cannot get out ask if the spiritual leader or congregation members would make home visits.
  2. If an older person is not now a part of a religious group but what once was and has some interest in returning, contact the head of the religious group and ask him/her to make a home visit and the care manager follow-up with transportation arrangements if yes.
  3. If an older client has had a recent close relative or friend die and wishes to return to a spiritual group she knew before, connect them, with the congregation they are familiar with for solace or grieving.
  4. If an older person moves to a new area and is part of a religious group connect them to the same religion and place of worship in the new town and arrange transportation and a new member to greet them
  5. If an older person has dementia if possible reconnect him her with his spiritual background through familiar prayer, music etc.  
  6. If an elder has dementia and can attend services without being disruptive, arrange for a caregiver to take them as they can still be drawn in  by the ” Smells and Bells’ 
  7. If you have a homebound client who wishes to return to a religious group, reconnect them by arranging, in their,  spiritual music, religious icons (a rosary or image, for example), readings from a sacred text, watching a service on television, listening to one on the radio or via computer.

 

Filed Under: Aging, Aging Family, Aging Life Care, aging life care manager, Blog, care manager, case manager, Dementia Activities, Dementia and Spirituality, elder care manager, Families, Geriatric Care Manager, geriatric care manager, geriatric social worker, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, Quality of Life, Spiritual Quality of Life Tagged With: aging life care manager, assessing for quality of life, care manager, case manager, demential and spirituality, geriatric care manager, nurse care manager, spirital assessment, spiritual assessment, spiritual supports in aging, spirituality in aging

Six Areas to Cover in a Whole Family Assessment

June 2, 2013

PDF-Cover-of-11-10-12My-Geriatric-Care-Management-Agency.jpg

 

Using the whole family approach with an aging family means doing a psychosocial assessment. In this approach you are generally focusing on two or more people in the family- your elderly client and their primary caretaker (whether doing hands on care or managing the caregiving). What are the  areas you must probe in this psychosocial assessment of a whole family ?

•Past trauma– family history

 

•Sandwich Generation issues

 

•Religious and cultural issues

 

•End of life issues

 

•Quality of Life issues –

 

•Relationship to money

 

 

Filed Under: Aging Tagged With: aging family, aging parent, aging parent care, aging parent crisis, assessing for quality of life, caregiver assessment, caregiver overload, caregiver overwhelm, caregiver stress, cultural assessment, cultural issues is aging, elders emotional quality of life, end of life, fretting at end of life, geriatric assessment for end of life, hospice for elderly parent, increasing quality of life, informal supports of an older person, isolation and quality of life, MFT, National Association of Geriatric Care Managers, Psychosocial assessment, psychosocial assessment- social connections, quality of life and technology, quality of life assessment, quality of life in retirement, relationship to money in aging, religious issues in aging, sandwhich generation issues, spiritual assessment, Whole Family Approach, whole family approach in aging

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