Knowing (us). An essential key to progress in good treatment.

Treating well, or rather treating ourselves well, is something that dignifies, honours and defines us as human beings. As we mature, we acquire those complex skills that allow us to treat well, in a personalised way, the different people who make up our biographical history. Parents, siblings, those who teach us, guide us, colleagues... This respectful and attentive treatment of the people with whom we live has a lot to give and also a lot to receive.

In short, treating, treating each other is, in reality, a form of encounter, in which opportunities arise to meet, to get to know each other, to learn, to debate, to grow as people. Also when we care.

But what do we mean by treating well?

Well-treatment must be more than precisely and correctly dispensing the care needed by the people we accompany. It is not an interaction in which one party is active and the other is not. On the contrary, both must seek and understand each other in order to promote that good accompaniment that emanates from active listening and empathy.

From a relational perspective, it fundamentally involves getting to know the person at our side. The person who accompanies the person being cared for, and in turn, the person who receives care from the person accompanying them.
As a result of this mutual knowledge and recognition, it will be much easier to provide those spaces and moments in which the person is him/herself, capacities are developed (each of them their own) and opportunities are offered, which may surprise us with how much or how little we know, and what, if anything, we have yet to learn.

This attentive, caring and personalised approach to care will be more likely in organisational environments in which good treatment figures in the culture, in the values and, especially, in the daily relationships of each and every one of the professionals, families, volunteers... who make up the day-to-day life of the people who need support.

Good treatment is a core issue in order to offer care centred on people, so that they have the possibility to develop large or small desires that give meaning to their daily lives, and, in short, to their lives.

A new resource that advances good treatment

From this perspective, in the publication of the Good Treatment Route, of the Routes of Advancement in ACP Project, we aim to offer some keys oriented towards facilitating the promotion of good treatment in care settings. Under this premise, we start with eight considerations that aim to contribute to making the meaning of good treatment more concrete. Firstly, we propose the convenience of reflecting on how we see the people we care for and their families, as well as our own beliefs in relation to care.

We then discuss the importance of knowledge and recognition of the person, regardless of their limitations and/or needs. We also stop to explore ways to promote self-determination, functional independence and risk prevention, as well as aspects related to the protection of privacy, promoting a meaningful life and strategies to enhance communication.

Our readers will find in the text, recommendations proposed to guide professional practice, reflections and also illustrations of learning and good practices through testimonies and stories offered by professionals from various centres of the Matia Foundation.

In the final part of this route we have included two additional sections. The first of these, "Support Resources for Implementation", contains a series of resources, grouped according to the aforementioned contents, with the aim of helping the teams to reflect on and develop professional practices associated with good treatment.

The publication closes with a section of "Articles and Documents of Interest", with a selection of technical documents in Spanish, which justify and provide evidence on the various issues developed in the route.

Those of you who wish to learn more about the subject have at your disposal the video of the webinar, in which those involved in its elaboration talk about this publication and the doors that it opens in the path of good treatment in which we all work.

I would like to conclude by reminding you of the next appointment scheduled in relation to these routes of progress in person-centred care. It will take place on Thursday 24 November, when we will present a route and a guide to take steps in communicating with people with dementia. Do not miss the opportunity to register.

Without further ado, I would like to thank you, dear reader, for joining us in this reading, which we hope will serve as inspiration and encouragement on a journey that, as interdependent beings, begins from the moment we first open our eyes and smile at the beings who brought us into the world.