Palliative Care for the Older Person: Cloak or Cover-up?

Abstract

Care of older people with incurable illness provides fertile ground for palliative care to flourish. True palliation means to cover the person and their family with a protective cloak of care including personalised attention to thoroughly assessed physical, spiritual, psychological, and emotional needs. Health professionals, chaplains, and volunteers are encouraged to enter each person’s unique story in their journey towards death. When the palliative cloak is ill-fitting it becomes a mere cover-up; opportunities for care are missed. Brief case studies highlight the difference between a cloak of care and its converse, with reference where relevant to the Christian theological tradition.

• ageing
• dementia
• incurable illness
• palliative care
• suffering

Notes

1. The increasingly common use of “palliative” to describe the person rather than the care exemplifies the confusion about the dying process. It also reinforces the erroneous concept that palliative care is confined to imminent death.