Dementia and Spiritual Care (SC9003W)

Content

This unit provides students with key skills for providing spiritual care for people with dementia. Students critically engage with the importance of relational personhood, community and transcendence in spiritual care for people with dementia. They engage with strategies for providing spiritual care for people with dementia, including sensory stimulation, silent presence and attentiveness. Students learn how to prepare and lead a chapel service or other communal event for a small group of people with dementia.

Learning outcomes

Unit sequence

No prerequisite units

Pedagogy

Zoom teaching in real time

Indicative Bibliography

• Bryden, C. Will I Still Be Me? Finding a Continuing Sense of the Self in the Lived Experience of Dementia. London and Philadelphia: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2018.
• Hobson, P. Enabling People with Dementia: Understanding and Implementing Person-Centred Care. Portsmouth, UK: Springer International Publishing, 2019.
• Kevern, P. Touching God: Dementia and the Bodies of Christ. Eugene: Cascade Books, 2025.
• Kitwood, T. and D. Brooker. 2019. Dementia Reconsidered, Revisited: The Person Still Comes First. London: Open University Press, 2019.
• Kontos, Pia. "Selfhood and the Body in Dementia Care." In Excellence in Dementia Care: Research into Practice, edited by M. Downs and B. Bowers. Maidenhead: Open University Press, 2014
• MacKinlay, E & A. Harrington, ed. Changing Cultures of Ageing and Spirituality. London: Routledge, 2023.
• Sabat, S. R. “A Bio-Psycho-Social Approach to Dementia." In Excellence in Dementia Care: Research in Practice, edited by M. Downs and B. Bowers. Second ed. Maidenhead: Open University Press, 2014.
• Swinton, J. Dementia. Living in the Memories of God. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012.
• Walters, D. "The Effect of Multi-Sensory Ministry on the Affect and Engagement of Women with Dementia." Dementia: the international journal of social research and practice 6, no. 2 (2007): 233-243.
• Wrigley-Carr, R. "Corporate Worship for People with Dementia: Rituals and Sensory Stimulation." Journal of Religion, Spirituality & Aging 33, no. 2 (2021): 206-222.

Assessment