'Doing dying well': Positive narratives of specialist palliative care occupational therapy from Ireland-based practitioners.
Eoin Gorman, Clodagh Daly, Ciara Walsh
Nine Irish palliative care OTs described their work as helping clients keep doing the things that matter to them — getting dressed, attending a wedding, showing art — rather than preparing for death.
These are practitioner themes, not evidence of what works.
Key findings
1OTs framed their core work as enabling continued occupational engagement — what they called 'doing living well' — with clients valuing 'the little things' (getting dressed, a walk in the garden, a birthday party) as a way to maintain normality, roles, and identity until death.
2Being client-centred was described as essential and involved three things: being present and listening, letting the client lead goal-setting to reclaim a sense of control, and continually re-evaluating goals as physical and psychosocial needs shifted toward the end of life.
3Holistic practice spanned both maintaining function in everyday tasks (seating, showering, dressing) and facilitating occupations with special meaning (a private art exhibition, renewing marriage vows), alongside educating and supporting families before and after the client's death.
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What it does not show
Nine participants, all women, all in Ireland, drawn from a small specialist workforce; findings reflect one country's palliative care context and cannot be assumed to apply elsewhere. Recruitment ran through a professional association advisory group, which may have attracted OTs with a particular interest in or identification with palliative care practice. Data were collected in 2019 but the manuscript was submitted in 2024; the authors note the gap was due to professional constraints and the pandemic, and argue the phenomena are stable, but five years is a long interval. Interviews were conducted by two final-year undergraduate students; while supervised, the power dynamic and inexperience of the interviewers may have shaped what participants chose to say. Transcripts were not returned to participants for member checking, and participants did not validate the final themes. This is a qualitative descriptive study: it produces themes from practitioner perspectives, not evidence that any particular approach improves patient outcomes.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflicts of interest and no financial support for the research, authorship, or publication.
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