Spiritual Well-Being in Long-Term Care
As people get older, their personal faith, spirituality, and religion help improve emotional health, physical well-being, and overall quality of life. People are living longer, but their quality of life starts to diminish due to the consequences of aging.
Due to memory loss, declining health, mobility issues, dementia, and frailty, people often require help with daily living activities or supervision. Needing long-term health care can be emotionally challenging for many people.
Research shows that prayer is the most common religious practice for coping. Prayer can help care recipients to find strength. Since so many people need long-term health care dealing with the spiritual part of aging becomes very important.
Deacon Doug McMannaman, writing in the Catholic Education and Resource Center, says the more someone prays, the happier they become.
The more we pray, the less anxious we become, and we are filled with a greater peace of mind and heart.
More People Needing Long-Term Health Care
The CDC states that there are nearly 16,000 nursing homes in the United States, with 1.7 million licensed beds and 1.4 million people receiving long-term care services in those facilities. Over 30,000 assisted living facilities are in operation. Plus, many adult day care centers and hospice facilities exist to provide long-term health care services.
While most long-term health care is provided at home, by home care providers and agencies, or untrained informal family caregivers, the number of people expected to require care in a facility is expected to rise as baby boomers age.
Many older people have a lifelong commitment and connection to their place of worship. As they age, they may need their faith community more than ever. Conversely, people often require help with daily living activities and are less mobile. Some lose the ability to participate in their faith community. When they reach a long-term care facility, they may feel even more separated and isolated from their faith, much less their family and friends.
While physical and mental care is important in these cases, spiritual care must not be forgotten. Several faith-based facilities representing Roman Catholic, major Protestant denominations, Jewish, and other faith communities exist to serve the needs of those who belong to those faith communities.
Non-faith-based long-term care facilities often provide a basic non-denominational church service catering to the majority religion within the facility. Priests, ministers, rabbis, and other religious leaders may visit residents who share their faith.
Transportation to area churches for those who are able can sometimes be available. However, it is, in fact, not the responsibility of long-term care facilities to ensure residents have their spiritual needs met. This is where the family must intervene and ensure that spiritual beliefs are upheld throughout the time spent within a facility. The benefits to the care recipient are worth the time to ensure that the spiritual needs of the care recipient are met, not just the physical needs.
Keep Basic Practices Going
Basic practices, such as prayer or devotion, can still be practiced in a facility. Communication with the deity or deities of the religion is easy enough to do in the privacy of the person's bedroom. Reading from a holy book or other religious scripture or even reading some power of prayer verses can be achievable in privacy.
A large volume of research shows that people who are more R/S [religious or spiritual] have better mental health and adapt more quickly to health problems compared to those who are less R/S. These possible benefits to mental health and well-being have physiological consequences that impact physical health, affect the risk of disease, and influence response to treatment.
Harold G. Koenig, Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Associate Professor of Medicine and Senior Fellow in the Center for the Study of Aging and Human Development at Duke University School of Medicine.
Religion vs. Spirituality
Religion is generally seen as a practical expression of spirituality. It includes the rituals and practices of the faith. The word "religion" is often identified as a set of institutionalized belief systems. The term "spirituality" is more neutral and much broader, suggesting our common human need to find meaning in our lives and relationships to something beyond ourselves.
Spirituality encompasses love, compassion, forgiveness, and respect for life. Spirituality gives people a source of meaning and understanding about the significance of what it is to be human.
One of the primary commitments of any long-term health care facility is to help its residents age with dignity. This includes allowing care recipients to continue practicing their faith in a way acceptable to them.
Gathering as a family regularly to continue basic religious practices to encourage spiritual well-being is also possible. Talk to the caregivers on duty to plan the best time for these meetings. Attempting a religious reading or prayer session must be done during downtime. The long-term care facility manager can help determine the best time for private spiritual practices.
It is well-documented that spiritual growth can continue despite a decline in a person's health and body. When someone is living in a long-term care facility, they typically realize that they are on their final life journey.
Seeking spiritual growth and thinking about the meaning of life becomes important.
He that loseth wealth, loseth much; he that loseth friends, loseth more; but he that loseth his spirit loseth all.
Talk to the Community
If your loved one who is living in a long-term care facility belongs to a church or religious community, see if the leader of the organization will visit the person regularly. For example, ask the priest to pay a visit to Grandma once per week for prayer services or communion. Some religious organizations have specific groups for this purpose, so one can add the loved one to the list of people who receive visits. Keeping the care recipient in the religious community helps maintain the spiritual well-being he or she built over a lifetime.
Communicate
Simply talking to the care recipient can do wonders for spiritual well-being. Talking about past and present religious beliefs helps the person in care gain perspective on the experience. Talking about everything, from where people go after passing away to personalized spiritual paths, will enrich spirituality and forge a personal connection with the loved one.
Spiritual health is important at every stage of life and has the possibility of being upheld in long-term care facilities. It is not always the responsibility, or the priority, of long-term care facilities to ensure the spiritual well-being of every patient. This is why it is essential for families to help loved ones continue existing spiritual practices.