Nursing Times publishes article on assessing spiritual needs of older patients

From Nursing Times:

(Abstract) The multidisciplinary and holistic assessment of older people allows health professionals to gain insight into their individual needs. The spiritual domain is one of five key domains that need to be explored when assessing older people. All humans are spiritual beings with spiritual needs, whether or not they are religious or belong to a church. Older people going through illness or faced with the proximity of death are particularly at risk of a spiritual crisis. All older people cared for by health and social care services should have the opportunity to access spiritual support. This last article in a six-part series explores how to address the spiritual care needs of older people.

Read the full article here. The piece offers a number of important observations on the spiritual care of older adults, as well as a good summary of tools available to the multidisciplinary care team. Specifically in the context of aging, the author cites the English National Health Service’s explanation that “In the context of illness, spiritual care may be necessary to support recovery and explore concerns about death and dying, religious and non-religious convictions, rituals and practices, relationships of significance, a sense of the sacred, and beliefs.” You can read about a recent milestone project on training spiritual generalists to help address the needs of older adults here.