Saturday, April 02, 2016

pastoral and spiritual care for those with dementia, Parkinsons and Alzeheimers

Dementia, Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's affect many people in our community.  When a person is affected by either of these not only do they have specific physical needs but they also have Spiritual needs to help them have a quality of life.   Following are some resources to help you and your congregation in developing an approach to spiritually helping people with Dementia, Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's.

General Resources:
Alzehiemer's Australia - fight dementia 
Alzheimer's Queensland
Alzheimer's Association USA

Articles and Papers
Anglican Retirement Villages foundation - Dementia and faith 2016 symposium
Journal of Health Care Chaplaincy - articles relating to Parkinson's disease
Various theological journals - articles relating to spiritual care for people with Dementia

Videos







Books

Graceful Alzheimer’s Care is a fourteen-week study guide for church and lay leaders to explore the church’s role in providing Christ-like care to individuals with Alzheimer’s disease and other chronic diseases.
Due to medical and health advances, there are far more elders in our congregations today than ever before—with an alarming percentage living with Alzheimer’s.
Although many faith communities have strong healing ministries, they have fallen short in understanding the challenges of dementia and their ramifications on the individual and caregivers.
Inspired by the two main covenants of the Bible, Graceful Alzheimer’s Care encourages the development of a caregiving covenant with three pillars: prayer, presence, and practice. Then, using uplifting stories from the Old and New Testaments, Dr. Cate applies powerful spiritual wisdom to the international Alzheimer's crisis.
Bringing over forty years of practical, academic, and spiritual knowledge in assisting individuals with dementia and their families, author Cate McCarty, PhD, ADC, wrote this book as a call to action for the spiritual community.

Facilitating Spiritual Reminiscence for People with Dementia: A Learning Guide
Spiritual reminiscence is a way of communicating that acknowledges the person as a spiritual being and seeks to engage the person in a more meaningful and personal way. This practical guide teaches carers how to facilitate engaging and stimulating spiritual reminiscence sessions with older people, and particularly with people with dementia.
After reading the guide, carers will understand the many and varied benefits of spiritual reminiscence, and will have developed the skills, confidence and communication techniques needed to support people with dementia in this activity. The authors present in accessible terms the evidence-base to support the benefits of the approach and provide clear, step-by-step instructions for facilitating spiritual reminiscence sessions, including useful suggestions for ideas and questions to stimulate discussion.
Intended to be used either as a self-learning tool or as the basis for staff training sessions, this will be a valuable resource for staff in care homes and day centres, activity coordinators, pastoral and spiritual care professionals, clergy and spiritual leaders.

A Guide to the Spiritual Dimension of Care for People with Alzheimer's Disease and Related Dementia: More than Body, Brain and Breath
Drawing on her years of experience as a clergywoman working with older people in care settings, Eileen Shamy discusses how pastoral work can help to develop holistic care for those suffering from dementia and related conditions - care which involves understanding of their spiritual as well as physical needs.
This sensitive and informative book provides guidelines for pastoral visits to people with dementia, showing how to empathise with, understand and support individuals during a visit. Emphasising the importance of retaining dignity and freedom of choice for people with dementia, it also presents practical advice about memory cueing and provides frameworks for leading worship for those with dementia.
A useful resource for a variety of people involved in pastoral care with older people, whether professionals or volunteers, this book provides inspiration from a respected author in the field of psychogeriatric care.
'This is a book for those actively engaged in or interested in spiritual ministry to persons with dementia. Shamy draws heavily upon her experience, making this book very personal in its approach. I appreciated this style, feeling that the anecdotes anchor the book in the realm of what can be done rather than the theoretical world of the "maybes". The main concepts of the book, those of spirituality, retained through dementia, and personal worth should be acceptable to people of most world faiths.'  - Leveson Newsletter
'This is an important book that has much to offer at a variety of different levels. It ranges from deep philosophical thinking to practical recommendations... a book that should be bought, digested and used frequently.' - Christian Council on Ageing
'Contains valuable material. The passages that attempt a definition of spirituality, and the stories about persons with dementia and how they have been helped to greater well-being, are relevant and excellently done. The spirit of Eileen Shamy shines out from these pages and carries its own message of passionate concern. One of the book's greatest strengths is its stories, which are unfailingly well-told and apposite.'  - Ageing and Society

Spiritual Care for Persons with Dementia explores spirituality in those with dementia to enrich our understanding of the neurological and psychological aspects of hope, prayer, and the power of belief. You will discover how your ministry is vitally relevant to the clinical well-being and quality of life of people with Alzheimer's disease. Spiritual Care for Persons with Dementia provides you with a model spiritual care program for long-term facilities that supplies you with ideas you can implement in your own ministry.
You will learn to avoid cognitive pastoral care method that can be hurtful to those suffering with dementia by using new approaches found in Spiritual Care for Persons with Dementia. This book provides you with suggestions about how to spiritually care for people with dementia. These important recommendations include:
understanding the value of pastoral contact when ministering to people with a loss of cognitive functions and memory
discovering the Progressively Lowered Stress Threshold psychosocial model (PLST) that can make important contributions by enhancing the quality of life for people with dementia
providing pastoral care using nonverbal methods to overcome the barriers of cognitive dysfunction
exploring a client's cognitive and emotional reality on a daily basis to determine how to best interact with him or her
gaining insight into how a thorough analysis of the illness and personal religious history can assist in planning religious activities that provide comfort and solace for people with dementia and their families
Spiritual Care for Persons with Dementia describes religious, theological, and psychodynamic perspectives that will help you to offer better spiritual care for people with dementia. Using your newly acquired skills from Spiritual Care for Persons with Dementia, you will be more effective when ministering to people with Alzheimer's Disease and to their families.

Do This, Remembering Me: The Spiritual Care of Those with Alzheimer's and Dementia
 • 5 million+ in the U.S. live with Alzheimer's, 5.5 million caregivers provide 17.7 billion hours’ unpaid care (2013)
• Key resource of practical tools/real-life applications for spiritual and physical dementia ce
“What do I do to help?” Alzheimer’s is the sixth leading cause of death in the United States, almost everyone knows someone with some form of dementia, yet few know how to answer that question, and very little material exists on providing spiritual care to adults with dementia-related diseases. Even seminaries rarely provide training or clinical pastoral education in this field.
This book is an answer. It provies a hands-on manual that will give clergy, spiritual care providers, and family members an understanding of the ongoing spiritual needs of individuals with dementia, as well as practical tools such as how to create a religious service in a memory care unit and how one might plan a nursing home visit. Accessibly written, with real life applications and sample services for a variety of settings. More than just useful, the book inspires with shared stories that are tender, sad, funny—and sometimes all three at once, encouraging readers to develop spiritual care ministries for people with memory loss in congregations, homes, nursing facilities, or other communities—a ministry that will only gain in importance in the coming decade, as Baby Boomers age and the number of people with Alzheimer’s and dementia skyrockets.


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