Focusing Care On The Whole Person

Healthcare today is about more than solely eliminating disease.  Physicians, nurses, radiologists, technicians and others involved with care are increasingly finding the need to adjust their protocols to embrace treating the whole person, not just that person’s disease.  

This is especially true for patients confronting a potentially life-threatening disease such as heart failure or cancer.  It’s natural for most of these patients to experience levels of psychosocial distress upon hearing the diagnosis and throughout the course of treatment.  Even for those who handle the news relatively well, there are various degrees of anxiety, stress, and depression, all of which have been shown to impact the effectiveness of care.  It is therefore crucial to offer patients and their families multi-faceted support throughout the treatment process.  

To begin, it’s vital that physicians do not underestimate the power of words, especially when first working with a patient.  By choosing how and what we say to patients, we have the capacity to assuage their fear and replace it with a positive attitude that places an emphasis on how they will live.  It’s also important that we take the time to learn about patients as individuals so we can identify the emotional and spiritual changes that occur as the patients go through therapy. When we take the time to understand how they deal with the stress of a life-threatening illness, we can encourage them to take advantage of specific coping strategies.

Every aspect of healthy living needs to be put into place as part of the patient care continuum.  For example, repeated studies have confirmed how beneficial good nutrition and regular physical activity are to the healing process. In addition to providing recommendations for effective dietary programs that aid healing, treatment facilities can arrange memberships to local fitness centers for patients and their families as a way to encourage regular physical activity. Both benefit the body and the mind during treatment. 

So too, patients have better outcomes when they support each other, especially when they are undergoing prolonged treatment that could last for weeks or months. This is particularly important for those patients who leave their homes to be closer to the hospital during treatment, thus removing themselves from their existing support systems and comfort level.  We have seen great results from programs such as pot luck dinners, local restaurant tours, educational seminars, and disease-specific support groups. Patients not only become better educated, but they also are given an opportunity to share common experiences and feelings, and develop a new supportive community to help during the healing process.

  Since patients can undergo literally life-transforming experiences during treatment, a spiritual connection can be very beneficial. To help provide this connection, treatment facilities can provide a resource directory with a comprehensive listing of religious institutions of all faiths. 

Healing is a process that continues after patients leave the hospital. Therefore, an increasing number of treatment centers have developed disease-specific survivorship programs that, based on whole-person care, help patients get back to normal as quickly as possible and also improve their quality of life.  The best of these programs include rehabilitation, exercise, and psychosocial and nutritional programs that are individualized for each patient and are based on the potential side effects the patient might expect to encounter during recovery. 

Our hospital was founded on Seventh-day Adventist principles. Accordingly, whole-person care is part and parcel of what we do.  The comprehensive approach that we take with treating the whole patient—physically, mentally and spiritually—has been an effective and critical part in patients’ long-term health outcomes. We encourage other hospitals and treatment centers to foster this same approach with their patients for similar long-term results.

Jerry Slater, M.D., is chairman of the James M. Slater, M.D., Proton Treatment and Research Center at Loma Linda University Medical Center.