Aging in Place Planning (Research, Video 1:50)

Many older adults view aging in place as the gold star of living well during declining years. It means having the health, social, and physical support you need to live safely and independently in your home or community. Aging in place is an advanced life event that supports independence and well-being. But planning ahead for aging in place has to be done with the same commitment as planning for any important life event. A lack of planning can greatly impede the realization of this life event for many older adults.

What do older adults perceive as their roles in planning for aging in place? Focus groups with 68 older adults over age 65 and living in the communities (rural, urban, and suburban) answered open-ended questions about their perceptions of future health events, needs, and planning. Three investigators analyzed and identified these five emerging advanced life events that impacted their ability to remain at home:

1) Hospitalizations
2) Falls
3) Dementia
4) Spousal Loss
5) Home upkeep issues

Many subjects reported a lack of planning for aging in place and perceived that life events such as those listed above simply would not happen to them. Other reasons for not planning ahead included these:

1) Uncertainty in future
2) Being too healthy/too sick
3) Offspring influences
4) Denial/procrastination
5) Pride
6) Feeling overwhelmed
7) Financial concerns

Although many older adults had not communicated their needs to their offspring, they still expressed reliance on offspring for taking care of their future advanced life events. If life events such as aging in place are to happen in increasing numbers, the reasons for older adults not planning ahead must be addressed vigorously to prepare them for future home needs and a voice in their care along with their offspring and/or other advocates.

Aging in place takes planning. Preparing for future needs is the key. The following video offers helpful resources to improve living while aging at home. Keep in mind that, while aging in place is what many older adults say they want, aging at home until the end of their lives is no guarantee of a high quality of life. Each situation has unique needs to be considered that may include other living options such as retirement communities.

Frances Shani Parker, Author
Becoming Dead Right: A Hospice Volunteer in Urban Nursing Homes is available in paperback and e-book editions in America and other countries at online and offline booksellers.

Hospice and Nursing Homes Blog

Old-Young Aging Expectations (Research, Video 4:08)

Are people less or more angry as they age? What about their degrees of sadness? Is it harder for others to hurt their feelings? Many older adults think they have become much more resilient and calmer in dealing with their feelings. Others say they are less tolerant and more annoyed and resentful than they were when they were younger. What do you expect to be the likely answer to these questions on anger and sadness based on research?

A study investigating age differences in anger and sadness was done with 82 younger and 80 older adults. Participants relived personal angry and sad memories and expressed aloud their feelings. Various emotional responses such as verbal expressions, facial behaviors, and physiological arousal were also noted. While age differences in sadness were less pronounced, older adults really did react with less anger than did their younger counterparts. Is that what you expected?

Expectations regarding aging, including physical aging, are often self-fulfilling among older adults and stereotypically incorrect among younger adults. This video illustrates the importance of both older and younger adults having positive aging expectations.

Frances Shani Parker, Author

Becoming Dead Right: A Hospice Volunteer in Urban Nursing Homes is available in paperback and e-book editions in America and other countries at online and offline booksellers.
Hospice and Nursing Homes Blog

Laughter Therapy in Nursing Homes (Research, Dementia Video 5:42)

Look at his face. Think about his lack of agitation, the light of wellness he reflects beyond his actual physical expression. You are looking inside. This could be someone you know with dementia, someone who has been engaged in a special way that opened an inner door of enlightenment. This could be someone experiencing joy in a nursing home. Maybe that wonderful stimulation came from laughter therapy, a series of techniques designed to produce laughter, reduce anxiety, and improve well-being.

In nursing homes where many residents ache with loneliness and feelings of depression, laughter can be a happy solution. This was demonstrated in a laughter therapy research study that included 32 nursing home residents in the control group and 33 nursing home residents from another nursing home. For two days per week (21 sessions in total), residents of the experimental group received laughter therapy. Total quality of life scores of residents in the experimental group significantly increased in comparison to the pretest. Nursing homes are encouraged to integrate laughter therapy into healthcare and as a routine nursing intervention.

Residents with dementia can benefit greatly from laughter therapy. This video features the Smile Study with Dr. Lee-Fay Low. He reminds us that behind the dementia is a real person.

Frances Shani Parker, Author
Becoming Dead Right: A Hospice Volunteer in Urban Nursing Homes is available in paperback and e-book editions in America and other countries at online and offline booksellers.

Hospice and Nursing Homes Blog

Prayer Requests from Patients and Healthcare Practitioners (Nurse Research, Video 2:36)

Nurses and other healthcare practitioners sometimes are asked by patients to pray for or with them. Although spiritual care is believed by many to be a part of the healing process, patients’ prayer requests can still be perceived in different ways. For this reason, exploring the comfort levels of nurses receiving patient-initiated prayer requests was studied.

This study involved 134 nurses in America completing an online survey which was later analysed. Their responses revealed the following patterns of ease and dis-ease in response to patients’ requests for prayer.

1)  The pattern of ease for prayer with patients distinguished three themes: being open to the voice of calm or silence, experiencing physical or spiritual peace, calling the chaplain.

For these nurses, prayers are natural components of nursing care. The majority of responses to all scenarios demonstrated an overwhelming ease in response and capacity to pray with patients on request.

2)  The pattern of dis-ease for prayers with patients distinguished two themes: having cautious hesitancy and praying to whose God.

These nurses experienced dis-ease with patients’ prayer requests, no matter what the situations were.

Healthcare practitioners should be prepared for how they would respond to patients’ requests for prayer.

In the following video presented by the Christian Broadcasting Network, a Christian nurse in the UK was suspended for initiating an offer to pray with a patient.

Frances Shani Parker, Author

Becoming Dead Right: A Hospice Volunteer in Urban Nursing Homes is available in paperback and e-book editions in America and other countries at online and offline booksellers.
Hospice and Nursing Homes Blog