CSA SPIRIT is a free eNewsletter on spirituality and aging for healthcare professionals published three to four times a year.

eNewsletters

• Spirit September 2011
• Spirit April 2011
• Spirit November 2010

Articles

(Free Adobe pdf Reader Download)

• 49 Ways to Provide Spiritual Care When There Is No Chaplain
• Challenge as Spiritual Care
• Physical Health and Spirituality: A Connection
• Happy Holidays
• Positive Aging for the New Year
• Touching the Spirit: How to Develop Programs that Enrich a Senior’s Spirituality
• Valuing the Spirit in Clients with Dementia
• Spirituality and Religion: An Ally for the Caregiver
• Dwellers and Seekers: A Paradigm for Spiritual Caregiving
• Aging with Spirit: Perspectives on Suffering
• Spiritual Care of Persons with Dementia
• Engaging Loneliness in Older Adults
• I Can Do It Myself!
• The Journey of the Spirit
• The Place of Spirituality in Providing Care for the Whole Person
• Triage for Spiritual Caregiving
• Forgiveness: Sharing the Journey
• Caring for the Whole Person: Four Spiritual Needs
• Creating Awareness of Spiritual Issues for Long Term Care Professionals

Recommended Reading

Vital Connections in Long-Term Care. (2003) Julie Barton, Marita Grudzen, Ron Zielske.  Health Professions Press.

This book provides insight into the need for caring connections between staff and residents as well as ways to build a caring community.  Each chapter contains exercises that can be used in staff in-service sessions.  I highly recommend it for anyone who wants to create a more caring climate in their senior residence.

The Best Friends Approach to Alzheimer’s Care (rev. ed. 2003) and The Best Friends Staff:  Building a Culture of Care in Alzheimer’s Programs (2001).  Virginia Bell and David Troxel.  Health Professions Press.

While these books focus on the care of residents with Alzheimer’s their model of friendship between staff and residents is worthy of consideration at all levels of care.  Knowing and valuing the life story of the residents is the basis for the friendship model of care they describe.  In the Best Friends Approach to Alzheimer’s Care chapters include:  The Best Friends Approach to:  Communication, Activities, at Home, in Adult Day Services and in Long Term Care Facilities.  The last chapter is “Being One’s Own Best Friend” a reminder to caregivers to befriend themselves as well as their clients.  This book has exercises for staff training and The Best Friends Staff has even more.

Counting on Kindness:  The Dilemmas of Dependency. (1991) Wendy Lustbader.  The Free Press

This book focuses on the feelings of those on the receiving end of care.  The themes of the book are “feeling angry and helpless in response to dependency, making the transition from an active life to confinement, handling thoughts and reflections about the past, noticing shifts in key relationships, realizing that time is running out and options are shrinking, and finding ways to live well in spite of all these changes” (p. x).  The author’s hope is that the book will be passed back and forth between dependent people and those who assist them so that the universal aspects of this experience can be shared.  This would make great reading for a resident/staff discussion group.

Links of Interest

Multi-Media Resources/Bibliographies

• Davidson Films
  a wealth of educational videos featuring insights about aging
• Gerowise International
  videos and other resources about aging and connections between generations
• Terra Nova Films
  hundreds of film titles for staff development in gerontology
• University of California, Berkeley Resource Center on Aging
  to subscribe to their monthly newsletter email ddriver@uclink4.berkely.edu
  libraries, research, links, upcoming California programs, copies of presentations at UC Berkeley