TAKE A MINUTE® FOR PALLIATIVE CARE
Zuleikha’s creation and development of an adaptive holistic approach to palliative care for cancer patients and their families is now called TAKE A MINUTE® For Palliative Care, formerly known as RTHEP©.
Today this work in India has reached thousands.
CANSUPPORT 2024
Going out with CanSupport Home Care Teams, so much traffic crammed into little lanes, may take 45 minutes or more to get to a patient’s house. There are many Home Care Teams, sometimes 2 cars per team, so that the teams can split up and see more patients. A team is a doctor, nurse, counselor, and driver, and me, when I am training a new person
TRAININGS
During training periods, we visit the patients that the team thinks will benefit most from the work I have created. In this process, the ones being trained get to see how this works in person, not just learning an exercise. Over time I have come to realize that it is not only the exercises themselves, but the style, the way we can approach the patient, and the way I adapt the motions or movements. And I train the teams in this way/approach
HOW WE WORK
We work through the body, and yet it is not an physical adventure. It is not a dance movement, thought it may remind you of one, and not an exercise which is a cure, or one that leads to fitness.
Often when we go into the home of the patient, there is a kind of tension, due to many things—could be the aftermath of a chemotherapy treatment, could be after an operation, or it could be the difficulty of living with feeling constantly uncomfortable.
It strikes me that I have been given an unusual assignment, working with palliative patients in this way. Bringing gentle movements together with kindness, a calmness often comes into the atmosphere, filling our minds, bodies and hearts for the time we are together. Many times a family member will take interest, and so I invite them to join us, and on some occasions, it is the whole family!
—ZULEIKHA
©2024
Photo Credit: © Swan Lake Publishing LLC
