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Counselling I Dementia I Montessori I Person–Centred care

By Vija Randall • August 12, 2024

Welcome and thank you for visiting our blog.  This is our first entry.  We hope that you will stop by here regularly to read our thoughts about counselling support and dementia care and share your comments and ideas with us.  We enjoy connecting with families, healthcare professionals, and people who are experiencing life difficulties and living with dementia.

Early in my career, I became frustrated that healthcare professionals were not doing enough with and for people with dementia to help them be successful in their daily life.

Having spent fifteen years in care, providing support to customers and their families in the local community, I have developed a deep understanding of the challenges they face and the importance of personalised support. I have been excited about what people with dementia CAN do since the first day I started working with them!  Whether I was engaged with them cooking, doing word searches, creating birthday cards for family and friends or just having a fun time together. This perspective is what motivated me to return to school for my counselling and Montessori for Dementia care studies.  I felt that would put me in a position to train others to see this other side of this population.  While my journey looked different, this is exactly my role every day now!  My work carries me throughout all kinds of settings from 1:1 mental stimulation session in the comfort of your home environment, counselling via Zoom platform, or providing personalised advice for a son about how to create a dementia-friendly home for his mother.

Along the way, I began to carve out time to work directly with families.  As a counsellor providing them emotional support and help set up goals and plan the journey with their loved ones.  In coaching sessions, I help to educate and encourage family members who are taking care of someone they love with this disease.

I was very fortunate to have a mentor who taught me the importance of getting to know each client as a person with a rich history, likes, dislikes, interesting experiences, hobbies, children, tragedies, etc.  Very quickly, I grew to look forward to hearing the stories of and spending time with my clients. 

If you change how you think about the condition, you will change your approach. Your attitude toward dementia and your loved one will have a huge impact on your perception and how the disease will affect your life.

Through years of experience working with people with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias, we have learned what is necessary to prepare for the future while living in the present, how to make the most of your day, where to look for help when you need it, how to communicate effectively with someone with memory loss, and where to make changes in your home so it is safe. In our training sessions, we explain the essential information you need to be the best care partner you can be. As you gain more understanding regarding the unique needs of someone with dementia and initiate the strategies we suggest, your overall stress will lessen and your sense of being overwhelmed will diminish.

Although Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia present daily challenges, we are confident that counselling support, workshops, and training will help you focus on the joys of what still is, rather than what is not. Despite the despair that many families speak of, we believe there is more to the story and therefore want to offer you hope. There will be days (hopefully many) when you will laugh; there will be days when you will be surprised by your strength; there will be days when you learn new things about the person you have known for most of your life; there will be days when you realize your great love for this person; and there will be days when you will be acutely aware of his or her great love for you.

Despite how your relationship with dementia started, you now have the opportunity to enjoy what might arguably be some of your best days yet and some of the best days for your loved one as well!