Spirituality, Cancer, and Aging

Spirituality has often been associated positively in healthcare by most patients. Healthcare providers should be sensitive to this when they make healthcare decisions impacting patients and their families. They should provide opportunities for them to share their religious and spiritual beliefs and offer support when possible.

By understanding the importance of spirituality in many people’s lives, healthcare workers and other caregivers can create better plans of encouragement for patients. These plans could include support groups for them that involve yoga, meditation, nature, music, prayer, or referral to spiritual or religious counselors.

For older adults, cancer is a major cause of morbidity and mortality. This palliative care cancer review examines the influence of spirituality on aging in general and on the management of older cancer patients.

These are the conclusions:

1) A spiritual perspective has been associated with successful aging, better tolerance of physical and emotional stress, and the ability to cope with serious diseases and isolation.

2) Spirituality has been associated with decreased risk of suicide and depression and is especially important in older adults.

3) Spirituality has also improved the quality of life and reduced the risk of disease and death for the patient's caregiver. It may render the palliative care of cancer more effective and may also aid in detection and management of spiritual pain, which may prevent healing at the end of life.

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, Frances Shani Parker's Website

Older Adult Religion and Spirituality (Research, Hospice Nurse Video 2:51)

Are most religious older adults spiritual? Are the most spiritual ones religious? Topics related to spirituality and religion can get very personal. That’s why many people avoid them. As hospice volunteers, we are advised not to impose our personal religious or spiritual beliefs on patients. Some people have daily spiritual experiences that are a core part of their lives. At the same time, they may have varying levels of praying or attending formal religious services.

When older adults come together and live in a community, they bring all their varied personal religious and spiritual beliefs and practices, including no beliefs and practices. Rush University Medical Center researchers studied the levels of daily spiritual experiences of 6,534 older adults living in biracial communities. These are the reported results of that study:

1)   Most participants had daily spiritual experiences. African Americans and women had more than Whites and men.

2)   Prayer and worship were moderately connected with daily spiritual experiences.

3)   African American race, older age, female gender, better self-rated health, and greater social networks were associated with higher daily spiritual experiences scores. Higher levels of education and depressive symptoms were associated with lower daily spiritual experiences scores.

Overall, these findings are consistent with other research findings on religion and spirituality in the lives of older adults.

As eleven-year-old Jayna Brown demonstrates in this video, many of these spiritual connections begin in childhood. She sings "Take Me to the King" by Tamela Mann:

Frances Shani Parker, Author

Becoming Dead Right: A Hospice Volunteer in Urban Nursing Homes is available in paperback at many booksellers and in e-book form at Amazon and Barnes and Noble booksellers.

Hospice and Nursing Homes Blog