‘Just a Simple Sausage Sandwich’: The Significance of Sensory Care Practices and Hidden Carers in the Hospice

Dying and suffering are considered relational experiences within sociology and these experiences are rooted in social relations as well as wider social and cultural structures. Settings of end-of-life care are filled with many sensory and emotional engagements that is often hared between persons in a multidirectional care entanglement. Richardson (2024) sought to explore how hospice workers engage with, make sense of and react to patient suffering in their work. This ethnographic study was conducted over six months and examined the engagements, interactions and experiences of clinical and non-clinical hospice staff in the United Kingdom. The author identified that both clinical and non-clinical staff engaged with all the senses, such as physical touch, the use of silence, the provision of food, and the visual and embodied environment. This article emphasizes the importance of understanding care as a sensory and relational practice. Read more…



,