You know that each person living at your Residential Care Facility for the Elderly (RCFE) comes with their unique preferences and requirements. They’re more than their medical diagnoses and their dietary restrictions. They’re a whole person with a wide range of passions, desires, and needs. The better your staff can meet them in a way that addresses all of that, the better their experience will be at your RCFE.
That’s why an increasing number of senior care service providers are applying a holistic approach. Holistic health practices mean seeing your resident as a whole person. Rather than just treating an isolated symptom, for example, a holistic approach factors in their lifestyle, other health concerns, and even their goals.
Understanding Holistic Health
Holistic health looks at residents as whole people. In doing so, it acknowledges that the mind and the body are connected. A holistic approach might, for example, consider how loneliness might play a role in a resident’s physical health outcome. Or it might acknowledge that the resident’s arthritis is worsened by a diet that incorporates a lot of inflammation-causing foods.
As an umbrella term, holistic health brings in alternative care practices like yoga, meditation, massage therapy, and acupuncture.
Holistic health practices can be particularly useful at an RCFE because they can help to improve both physical and mental wellness for your residents. At the same time, they move residents toward those goals without reliance on side effect-causing medications or expensive treatments. In this way, this approach can help you implement measures to better life for your residents and simultaneously limit liability for your facility and your team.
Some Ideas To Implement Holistic Health Practices At Your RCFE
If you’re curious to see what holistic health could do for your facility, here are a few areas to explore.
An Emphasis on Nutrition
A core feature of holistic health is the view of the person as a whole. This approach acknowledges that the decisions we make each day have an impact on our wellness.
Better nutrition serves as a perfect example. When you help your residents choose foods that are rich in what their bodies need, you help them feel their best.
That can mean adjusting the meals you offer at your facility. But don’t stop there. To empower your residents to take control of their holistic health, also offer education about good nutrition.
Yoga Class
Yoga has been proven to promote healthy aging. This type of exercise encourages people to think about how their mind and body connect. And as a low-impact way to improve strength, flexibility, balance, and stress management, it’s a great way to support your residents’ wellbeing.
Consider hosting a weekly yoga class, particularly one led by an instructor who has experience teaching classes for older students.
Guided Meditation
Holistic health emphasizes the connection between the mind and the body. You can help residents explore this connection in a positive way with meditation.
The National Council on Aging and other experts recommend meditation as a tool to support wellbeing. Bringing in someone to host periodic guided meditation can help your residents in a few notable ways, including:
- Minimizing the symptoms of anxiety and depression
- Improving cognition
- Supporting immune function
- Helping with pain relief
In short, meditation can help to improve the overall quality of life for any resident who participates.
You can host a group guided meditation, or you can connect residents to this holistic health practice one-on-one.
As you implement holistic health practices, you can improve the wellness of your residents. This, in turn, reduces risk at your facility. And that can lead to lower insurance premiums.
If you’re bringing in a holistic health approach, tell your RCFE liability insurance agent to see if it could yield savings. Contact us at (805) 413-5668 today.
