The series of articles in this issue reflect various aspects of religion and spirituality's impact on persons with dementia. Twenty-three years ago when I took over editing this journal from Stephen Sapp, Ph.D., the focus of most articles was in areas of how religious organizations provide services and/or spiritual well-being of older adults. It is no secret that the study of dementia has made great leaps and bounds in finding the source of the various types of dementia in the medical and counseling fields. Through the work of Susan McFadden, M.D., and many others over the past 10 years especially, progress has also been made in understanding the various aspects of spirituality and how it impacts persons with dementia.
Over the years, interviews with clergy and other caregivers suggest that one theory suggests that older adults with dementia won't remember the visitor anyway, so why visit? Anyone who has really worked with persons with dementia know that human contact and relationships are still very important to them. These types of perspectives make the challenges of presenting a single approach to supporting the spiritual needs of older adults more challenging.
One way to look at the spiritual needs of seniors with dementia is to ask the theological question, “when does the soul leave the body?” Based on Hebrew, Christian Scripture and Hindu writing, the soul leaves the body upon the death of the person. If this is consistent with the respondent's views, then the new challenge is to understand that with dementia, one's cognitive mind is challenged, however, if the soul only leaves the body upon death of the body, then is it possible that while cognition is challenged, the spiritual self remains intact? If this is the case, then we have a new challenge for future research. Human beings tend to communicate with one another while employing cognitive and language skills. Fewer techniques are available to communicate directly with the spiritual nature of the person. Historically, music and in some instances poetry and other worship elements do seem to be able to do this. But are there other ways to do this? The next stage of this research to reach out to the spiritual needs of older adults with dementia is to find new ways to support the spiritual nature of the person.