spiritual quality of life Archives ⋆ Cathy Cress

Passover Begins Friday-Care Managers Can Support Clients Spiritual Needs

April 11, 2022

Passover begins Friday and brings many Jews will celebrate with a seder

where their spiritual beliefs will be celebrated with food, family, and ritual.

As we age joining in spiritual rituals means more and more to us. Ritual

religious holidays like Passover fill all faiths, but especially elders faiths and both spiritual and emotional needs.

A Care Manager needs to learn how to offer elders support and inclusion during holidays like Passover or any religious holiday.

Care management is first and foremost a holistic interaction between

a caring professional and an older adult. Holistic care works

with the senior beyond just the necessary formal services. Care

managers should work with the seniors and their families to know their religious needs if any. Getting to know the person includes understanding the physical, social, emotional, and spiritual needs and how you can help them get included in the celebration.

Even though Passover begins Friday the average care manager does not see themselves as doing therapy with their clients or encouraging religion. But the work of Carl Jung or Viktor Frankl may be more than is useful. For most care managers , it is helpful to follow a few rules:

1. Listen to the client. Understand the client’s perception of the religious phenomenon as the person describes it and how you can help them celebrate Passover or any religious holiday if they wish.

2. Listen to his or her the perceptions of the client’s faith tradition and

spiritual beliefs and how much and how they want to be included in family celebrations or religious services so you can help them do this, through contacting the family, the spiritual place of worship, so they can attend and have transportation or arrange some form of celebration if homebound

3. Consult with the Rabbi from the Temple near them, who can help interpret any

beliefs or rituals or symbols that cannot be fully understood from the description of the client and if the temple has transportation for elders to services if the client wishes to attend.

Read Rev.James Ellor’s, Ph.D., LCSW, DCSW, Baylor University’s excellent chapter on Spirituality and the Geriatric Care Manager.

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What Are the 7 Steps to Spiritual Assessment for Elders

April 2, 2019

Spirituality Means More As We Age

Spirituality can matter more as you age. Now that we are entering a season of high spiritual celebrations like Easter- this is an important ritual to involve elders in spiritual communities. Religious communities offer elders socialization thus increasing their quality of life and returning joy to their lives.

What is This all About?

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, for we face death coming at a rapid pace. Elders 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 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.

Spiritual Quality Of Life Assessment

One assessment care managers can do is a spiritual 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

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.
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 if yes.
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.
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
If an older person has dementia if possible reconnect him her with his spiritual background through familiar prayer, music, etc.
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’
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

Quality of Life Assessment Combats Isolation

July 4, 2018

We live in an age where we can communicate with family across the country and around the globe with a few clicks of a mouse or taps on a smartphone screen. However, despite advances in communications technology and the increasing connectedness it brings, research indicates that, as a society, we are lonelier than we have ever been. Perhaps no other age group feels the keen sting of loneliness more than the elderly.

One of the biggest issues for seniors is that their social circles begin to shrink as we get older. Friends, significant others, and family members move or pass away. Even those who still live close by may be inaccessible due to limited mobility, triggered many times once a senior can no longer drive safely. Age-related changes in one’s physical condition, such as hearing loss and low vision, can make it so difficult to communicate that it doesn’t seem worth the effort anymore

In the UK, only 17% of older people are in contact with family, friends, and neighbors less than once a week, and 11% in contact less than once a month.

Lifespan, a care management program in Santa Cruz, California, has just begun a quality of life program called “Well Being”. Their program is designed to bring joy back to elderly clients, many of whom are isolated or living alone. They serve elders at any stage of their lives- from mentally clear to levels of dementia. Lifespan employs personal assistants trained in quality of life activities ,to engage elders in intellectual, physical, emotional and spiritual quality of life activities after the care manager does a quality of life assessment and creates a quality of life action plan outlining what activities would bring back joy and activities they love and can do again with the personal assistant help.

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Join me in my newest FREE Webinar

How to Find Concierge Clients Who Can Afford You

WHEN Tuesday May 17th 2022

WHAT TIME_2 PM-3:30 PM Pacific Standard Time

What we will cover

Why only top 10% can afford private pay care management.

Who Are the 5 types of VIP/Concierge Clients ?

Sales Using Benefits Not Features to ALCA -GCM 3rd PARTIES

Understand how to find VIP Concierge Clients Do hot mapping & Market Studies

How to Use Free Public Relations ( PR) to Find Adult Children of VIP Clients

How to create or revise a Concierge Geriatric Care Management Strategic Marketing Plan