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Spiritual Assessment and Intervention with Older Adults

Current Directions and Applications

• By Mark Brennan, Deborah Heiser

• Price: $39.95
• Binding: Paperback (also available in Hardback)
• Pages: 184
• Published by: Routledge
• Publication Date: 23rd September 2005
• ISBN: 978-0-7890-2748-1

About the Book

Stay up-to-date with the latest innovative methods of meeting the spiritual needs of the elderly

Spiritual Assessment and Intervention: Current Directions and Applications examines current state-of-the-art efforts in the development and implementation of spiritual interventions for older adults. Academics and practitioners working in social work, social welfare, medicine, and mental health and aging present innovative approaches to meeting major challenges in the field of gerontology, including elder abuse, dementia, care giving, palliative care, and intergenerational relationships. The book provides practical methods for dealing with the problems and pitfalls of starting and evaluating interventions of a spiritual nature in a variety of community-based and institutional settings.

Spiritual Assessment and Intervention: Current Directions and Applications provides you with an overview of current and future methods and means of providing spiritual support to the elderly as they struggle with the problems and possibilities of aging in today’s complex world. Growing interest in the positive effects that religiousness and spirituality can have on life stress has created a growing need for research and practice models that strengthen, reinforce, or promote the spiritual well-being of older adults. This collection—first presented in 2003 at the 56th Annual Scientific Meeting of the Gerontological Society of America—addresses the important care giving and practice issues involving the physical and psychological health of older adults.

Spiritual Assessment and Intervention: Current Directions and Applications examines:

• how older adults use narrative therapy to manage adversity and maintain self-efficacy
  
• how faith-based communities can be enlisted as important social resources
  
• a pilot government-funded project to raise awareness of elder abuse in faith communities
  
• an intergenerational project involving a preschool and a retirement community
  
• spiritual activities for adults with Alzheimer’s disease
  
• the Creating Alternative Relaxing Environment (CARE) Cabinet intervention

Spiritual Assessment and Intervention: Current Directions and Applications is an essential resource for gerontological practitioners from the biological, clinical (including physicians, physician assistants, nurses, and dentists), behavioral and social sciences (including anthropologists, psychologists, social workers, sociologists, and researchers), and for health care administrators.

Table of Contents

• Introduction: Spiritual Assessment and Intervention: Current Directions and Applications (Mark Brennan and Deborah Heiser)
  
• Spiritual, Religious, Nonspiritual, and Nonreligious Narratives in Marginalized Older Adults: A Typology of Coping Styles (Holly B. Nelson-Becker)
  
• A Feasibility Study of a Parent Care Planning Model with Two Faith-Based Communities (David R. Myers, Lucinda L. Roff, Helen W. Harris, David L. Klemmack, and Michael W. Parker)
  
• Raising Awareness of Abuse of Older Persons: An Issue of Faith Communities? (Elizabeth Podnieks and Sue Wilson)
  
• Empowering Spirituality and Generativity Through Intergenerational Connections (Sandy J. Eggers and Beth H. Hensley)
  
• Spiritual Activities for Adults with Alzheimer’s Disease: The Cognitive Components of Dementia and Religion (David E. Vance)
  
• Spirituality and Palliative Care: The CARE Cabinet Intervention (Deborah Heiser, Mark Brennan, and John Redic II)
  
• Spiritual Caregiving for Older Adults: A Perspective from Clinical Practice (Ralph DePalo and Mark Brennan)
  
• Index
  
• Reference Notes Included