Bedside Art Benefits Patients, Families, Staff (Video 3:43)

“It makes me feel good as a person," said one elated patient. The arts on many levels have always served as promoters of good health and creative communication. For those who are ill, many benefits include self-expression, tranquility, and more options for improving quality of life. Arts @ the Bedside, an arts program initiated by the Visiting Nurse Service of New York Hospice Care is a great example of the role hospice volunteers can play in facilitating varied arts expressions of home hospice patients. Volunteer training includes six monthly training sessions led by professional artists. Training visits, session reports, and the impact on volunteers are recorded. This program provides beneficial results, not only for volunteers, but also for patients, families and staff.

Art programs serve as sources of well being and healing for non-hospice patients. This video features the Art for Health program at Stanford Hospital. This program helps to lift patients' spirits and alleviate stress and anxiety. The one-on-one bedside sessions are available for free to any patient at the hospital who is interested in participating.

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

Why Blog About Terminally Ill Relatives? (Cancer Research, Alzheimer’s)

The Internet has become a major outlet for communicating intimate personal experiences regarding illness. Communication includes not only patients dealing with their own challenges, but also loved ones who want to share their involvement and feelings about their journey with patients. Why are people compelled to inform others all over the world about these terminal illness experiences? A research analysis with bloggers was done during and after illness of family members who died of cancer. These are findings resulting from those telephone interviews:

1)   Blogging introduced relatives to new friends with similar experiences.

2)   Communicating through blogging helped relatives during their grief process.

3)   Recording their written stories through blogging helped relatives preserve memories.

4)   Writing about illness experiences had negative aspects when bloggers were misunderstood, publicly criticized, and when they felt that they were giving their reading audiences “reality show" entertainment.

Generally, blogging was viewed as a complement to professional healthcare and a way to prevent ill health.

Our Long Goodbye is a blog recording a family’s experiences with Alzheimer’s disease. Blogger Patti, who blogged for several months until her mother died, says her purpose for starting the blog was “to chronicle my experiences with my 82-year-old mother’s late-stage Alzheimer’s.” Although her mother is deceased, Patti's blog is still available for the world to read.

Health care blogs like mine and health care websites can be persuasive. They are used by many to impact the thoughts and actions of others. Is one more persuasive than the other? Here’s what the research says: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/health-blogs-vs-websites-frances-shani-parker?trk=mp-reader-card

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

Young Celebrate Older Adults Through Dance (Research, Video)

Some young people don’t seem to have a clue that older adults are the major reasons they enjoy many of life's pleasures. If they really appreciated the sacrifices that were made for them by previous generations, not just in their families, but society in general, perhaps they would understand that many of these older adults are entitled to far more respect than they are receiving from them.

I have witnessed outstanding young students displaying great kindness toward older people on many occasions. But I have also viewed lots of young people on the Internet in so-called funny videos mimicking older people in the most insensitive ways. Stereotypes were used in the extreme with language and graphics defying human decency. In addition, some young adults are guilty of mistreating older adults in terms of crime, service, and general courtesy. In a study published in Research on Aging where older adults were asked if they received worse service and if people treated them with less respect and courtesy because they were older, one in three said they felt they were treated worse because of their age.

Recently, I discovered this amazing video with young dancers celebrating the love and vibrancy of older aging. Keone and Mariel Madrid, dance choreographers who are a young married couple, perform a routine as an older couple to Bob Marley's "Is This Love?” Like the song says, older adults just want to be loved and treated right.  Who doesn’t?

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

Funny Hospice Caregiving Stories

Look at this face. If you think hospice patients and their caregivers are never this happy, you don’t know jack about hospice care. Whenever I tell people I’m a hospice volunteer, they usually respond with strong empathy for the difficult and sad work I must be doing. They also imply that I'm close to sainthood for accepting such depressing assignments. This always amuses me because I don’t find hospice volunteering difficult or sad. In fact, most days are pretty upbeat with challenges that are usually interesting. True service is always win-win. I’m a regular person doing what millions of people do in their own ways, and that is volunteer service.

Humor has a lot do with the kinds of interactions my patients and I share. People say I'm funny, but my terminally ill patients are often funnier, not only with me, but with others with whom they have contact. A very engaging patient shared many hilarious stories about her life. Some days she’d just reminisce and have us both cracking up, especially when she talked about the bear chasing her in circles around her house in a rural area. A male patient and his three roommates teased one another so much, it was unlimited laughter every time I visited them at the nursing home. My hospice patient who could barely speak was the ringleader. Oh, I can’t forget the two ladies having a pretend fight from their wheelchairs. I still haven't figured out who won, but it was more entertaining than “Saturday Night Live.” Another patient’s bedside birthday party with a menu of fried chicken livers, red velvet cake, and ice cream was another winner! Of course, one birthday balloon read, “It’s a boy!” What? Did my ninety-year-old hospice patient just have a baby?

These are just a few of hundreds of funny hospice stories that make me grin. If you have been a hospice caregiver, you have probably accumulated many stories of your own. Humor has health outcomes that can benefit everyone, including those who are terminally ill and their caregivers. Healthcare workers and patients should cherish these moments of laughter. Made you smile, didn’t they?

You can read about healthcare humor and research here. 

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