Staff can assist family members to record familiar prayers for playing to their loved ones. Furthermore, resident prayer and hymn requests can be incorporated into a weekly nondenominational service. If the assessment shows the resident is experiencing spiritual distress, care plan approaches may include pastoral counseling, psychotherapy intervention, and medication regimen evaluation. But caregivers should not assume that residents' feelings will remain static. Entering a nursing facility does not mean a person stops growing and changing.
Residents often reevaluate and change what they value.
Therefore, spiritual needs must be regularly monitored and changes to the care plan made accordingly to guide staff in providing the support the resident needs. It is understandable that residents and families have heightened spiritual needs as death approaches. But facility management should remember that staff, too, will have intensified needs because of their close interactions with residents. Therefore, Ingleside holds a bedside closure service to comfort those left behind. Part II of the assessment tool provides information about whether or not a resident and family want a service and what they would like incorporated into the service.