Tag Archives: compassionate touch

Compassionate Touch®, Senior Care Professionals

Expressive Touch in Caregiving is Beneficial for Everyone

March 1, 2021 Julie Boggess 2 Comments

Touch connects humans to each other, reduces stress, and communicates care and concern. Don’t we all need a little more of this these days?

Compassionate Touch® is an effective caregiving technique that combines expressive touch and compassionate presence. The good- old-fashioned back rub is making its way back to eldercare, reinforcing that touch is beneficial for everyone.

But, let’s not stop at the back. Add shoulders, arms and hands, legs and feet, and now we have a powerful caregiving protocol that is easy to learn and so effective.

Eldercare providers need tools that improve the quality of life for those they serve. Additionally, providers need ways improve the quality of the work experience for their employees. I would argue that there has never been a more critical time than now to seek new ways to retain employees.

Compassionate Touch® hits the mark on both counts.

Benefits of Touch

Compassionate Touch® offers numerous benefits to both care partners. Findings are detailed here, as reported by participating nursing homes.

Decreased dementia related behavioral expression
Decrease in rejecting care
Reduction in anti-psychotic medication use
Increased cooperation with care

Additionally, touch is equally beneficial for the caregiver. The physiological response of increasing oxytocin and decreasing cortisol is a stress reducer. In addition, caregivers also reported that they feel better equipped to respond to the emotional needs of their elders.

Empowered and equipped caregivers are better positioned to provide excellent care.

To illustrate, observe these words from an Ohio Skilled Nursing Activities Director:

“I have found the CT program a pleasant way to engage our residents in a touch program which is essential to all human life. It thrills my heart to see the positive verbal and non-verbal responses from our residents.”

To conclude, there is no better time than the present to re-ignite the compassion, love and connection between elders and their caregivers. Both parties need it now, more than ever.

Julie has worked in Aging Services for over 30 years and has been a Licensed Nursing Home Administrator since 1990. She is a the Director of Grants and Consulting Projects and a Certified Master Trainer with AGE-u-cate Training Institute. In addition, she is an instructor and of Gerontology and Leadership in Aging Services at Northern Illinois University and lives in the Chicago Northwest Suburb of Mount Prospect, IL.

Senior Care Professionals

Touch is a Touchy Subject in Eldercare

February 17, 2021 Julie Boggess 2 Comments

Human beings need the connection of touch for wellbeing. Expressive Touch is possible and necessary, even during a pandemic.

The pandemic has made us all wary of getting too close to others, and rightly so. Shivers might run down your spine thinking about touching someone not related to you.

Touch, meaning holding a hand, offering a hug or a warming shoulder rub. Can we? Should we? Touch, is a touchy subject these days, after all.

People express their fatigue with pandemic-style living. How many times have you heard, “I’m so over it”?

Imagine how over it elders who live in elder care communities must feel? Separated from family and friends for a year with a profound absence of expressive touch in their lives.

Elders Need Touch Too

Touch is the first sense to develop in the womb and one of the last to leave us before we die. Human’s need the connection of touch throughout their life-course, which includes old age.

Yet, studies reveal that older adults lack meaningful touch in their lives, under ordinary circumstances. Layer in a pandemic, and the effects will be catastrophic.

People delivering care for elders in care communities must touch to provide for basic care needs. It is impossible to assist with dressing, ambulation and bathing without touch. This form of touch is task focused instrumental touch. We are mistaken in thinking that this is the only form of touch needed or wanted by elders.

Consider from a place of empathy what life absent of expressive touch must feel like. No hugs or soft embraces. Nobody to sit with and hold hands or stroke your forehead before bed.

When we emotionally connect with the realities of what living life like this could be like, we can safely step out of a comfort zone and make a change in our actions of care.

Consider the difference a gentle shoulder or back rub could make in an elder’s day. Or, soothing strokes on the forearm or on top of the legs before bed.

It is safe and possible to incorporate expressive touch with instrumental touch in the tasks of caregiving. Try beginning a bathing event with a soothing back rub.

Click here to learn more about how to formalize expressive touch as a part of your community caregiving protocol.

Next up, incorporating expressive touch in caregiving is good for the caregiver too!

Senior Care Professionals

Case Study: Compassionate Touch at Presbyterian Senior Living

February 10, 2021 Julie Boggess 2 Comments

Presbyterian Senior Living offers love, connection and comfort to their elders by creatively keeping Compassionate Touch moving forward during the pandemic.

AGE-u-cate honors the wonderful work at Presbyterian Senior Living (PSL), based in Dillsburg, Pennsylvania.

Alicia Fenstermacher, PSL Corporate Director of Purposeful Living and AGE-u-cate Certified Master Trainer shared how PSL keeps resident and employee well-being front and center during the pandemic with Compassionate Touch.

Since 2015, Compassionate Touch is integrated into the culture of care and service at PSL. They have over 230 certified Compassionate Touch Coaches, and 989 trained caregivers.

The pandemic imposed an environment of isolation and disconnection for their elders. Loneliness and depression are serious risk factors for elders lacking human connection and touch. Without delay, Alicia accepted the challenge and created a solution to continue training staff on CT during the pandemic.

Leadership in Action

“Obstacles don’t have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don’t turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it or work around it.” Michael Jordan.

Alicia used the Master Trainer resources provided by AGE-u-cate. She created a customized a 40-minute education module about the benefits, skill, and application of the Compassionate Touch techniques.

The staff at PSL find Compassionate Touch easy and flexible. Additionally, feedback indicates that using CT reduces care partner stress and helps the staff to build trusting relationships with their residents.

Further, CT, along with other interventions, results in decreased incidents of resident behavioral stress reactions.

Presbyterian Senior Living mission is to provide compassionate, vibrant and supportive communities and services to promote wholeness of body, mind and spirit.

“We are honored to be a part of the PSL mission in action,” Pam Brandon, Founder and President, AGE-u-cate Training Institute.

COVID Recovery: Rebuilding Human Connections

December 10, 2020 Julie Boggess Leave a comment

We can restore human connection and relationships post-COVID by understanding the importance of re-awakening the senses through the simple act of touch.

For nine months, we’ve been under COVID-19’s siege. People residing in care communities are still confined to their rooms, cared for by overwhelmed team members shielded in protective gear and with no outside visitors.

Most certainly, this is devastating blow to any sense of well-being. Now we’re looking ahead to what changes 2021 may have in store. We may finally see a glimmer of hope as we anticipate our collective recovery from COVID.

Before looking forward, let’s glance at the toll on those the precautions keep safe. We’ve all seen first-hand or heard reports of social isolation and loneliness.

As humans, we all have a deep-rooted need for connection with others. We connect through voice, facial expression, body language, touch. Cut off from this bond, anxiety, depression, futility, decreased function, falls, and worsening dementia may set in. Some frail elders stop eating and wither, losing their desire to live.

Of course, every person is unique. Some are naturally resilient and able to better roll with the changes and find meaning in reading, music, and computer or phone calls.

However, others don’t have the reserves to carry them through, as we see in elders with advanced dementia or other conditions, placing them more at risk for decline.

Our hats are off to all of you working so hard to try to create a connection. Arranging window or porch visits with families, distanced communal activities, video chats, and more.

Our Way Forward

Although we haven’t turned the corner yet to see the end of COVID, now is the time for conversations about how to open the doors again and rebuild lost human connections.

Going straight from “lockdown” to the “old way” probably isn’t an option. Creativity and flexibility is needed well into 2021.

Perhaps the basics is a good starting point. The senses offer a way to reach through the fog of prolonged isolation.

Compassionate Touch is a universal language of the heart that will help fill the void for elders, families, and the care team alike. Even now, a caring touch on the shoulder or a few kind words will help.

Physical closeness without the barrier of a window will make for better hearing and verbal understanding. And one day ahead, when protective equipment isn’t standard garb, facial expressions will be seen again.

Some states created an “essential caregiver” designation for family members, allowing them to help with care and provide companionship for loved ones. This is a good step forward.

Regardless of how things unfold in your community, let’s keep the conversation going about how we will navigate the next phase—collective recovery.

These two links have powerful videos about the impact of isolation on elders, families, and care staff.

This Article was written by Ann Catlin, OTR, LMT, founder of Compassionate Touch, a program offered by AGE-u-cate Training Institute.