Search

Spirituality is an important component of spiritual well-being (SWB) and quality of life in the elderly. The Hear My Voice study explores the impact of spiritual life review and spiritual legacy document (SLD) formation on people with advanced diseases, including the elderly. Interview transcripts and SLDs of five participants ≥80 years were reviewed. Cases were summarized with an emphasis on spirituality and resiliency. Follow-up survey results were analyzed. Common themes included spirituality providing comfort, strength, community, and inspiration. Trends toward improved SWB and faith were detected after life review and SLD formation. Satisfaction surveys indicated greater sense of meaning post-intervention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Life-review interventions (LRI) are psychotherapeutic techniques originally derived from gerontology, which can be distinguished from other biographical and reminiscing techniques. They have been systematically implemented and investigated not only in elderly clients with depression, cognitive decline, in oncology units and in hospices but also in adolescents with various mental problems. LRI are mainly based on the elaboration of the autobiographical memory as well as on personal identity consolidation. This bears the potential for the systematic introduction, use, and evaluation of LRI within the field of psychotraumatology. Method: This article gives a general overview and outlines a structured LRI by means of a case example of a World War II-traumatised patient. Other applications and implementations of LRI in psychotraumatology and other related areas are presented. Result: So far, only uncontrolled or controlled LRI case studies have been investigated with traumatized samples. Conclusion: The importance of further randomized controlled studies is emphasized.

Life-review interventions (LRI) are psychotherapeutic techniques originally derived from gerontology, which can be distinguished from other biographical and reminiscing techniques. They have been systematically implemented and investigated not only in elderly clients with depression, cognitive decline, in oncology units and in hospices but also in adolescents with various mental problems. LRI are mainly based on the elaboration of the autobiographical memory as well as on personal identity consolidation. This bears the potential for the systematic introduction, use, and evaluation of LRI within the field of psychotraumatology. This article gives a general overview and outlines a structured LRI by means of a case example of a World War II-traumatised patient. Other applications and implementations of LRI in psychotraumatology and other related areas are presented. So far, only uncontrolled or controlled LRI case studies have been investigated with traumatized samples. The importance of further randomized controlled studies is emphasized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]