Concluding Remarks by Professor Nathan Herrmann and Student Chair Selina Chow

This past school year, we have continued the Dementia Awareness Program through our weekly blog posts and volunteer work with seniors with dementia. At the beginning of this year, we were met with an overwhelming number of students interested in joining the program and have ultimately formed a group of 10 dedicated student volunteers. Each student has been paired with a resident with dementia at Briton House – a seniors residence in Toronto.

Since October 2017, we have visited our partners at Briton House weekly to provide companionship and engage in mentally-stimulating activities, such as arts and crafts. While we all had varying degrees of experience, with some students who had no prior experience with seniors with dementia to others who were involved with this program last year, we were able to successfully engage the residents in conversation, activities, and even holiday-themed parties. Although there were challenges at times, we have learned to problem solve and ultimately improved our communication skills when working with individuals with dementia. It has been a privilege to work with these amazing seniors and we are honoured to have made a difference in their lives, as they never fail to let us know how much joy we bring to their day.

As our time at Briton House comes to a close for this year, we want to thank the residents for letting us into their lives. We will miss them dearly and look forward to seeing them again soon. We would also like to thank the staff at Briton House for supporting us weekly and helping us to organize all the activities we did with the seniors. Last but not least, we are grateful to Dr. Herrmann for his leadership of the Dementia Awareness Program and his mentorship throughout our learning process this year.

To our readers, thank you for following our blog posts again this year, and we hope that you have been able to deepen your understanding of dementia through the ‘Ask the Expert’ segments and the bi-weekly updates on current research in this field. For additional information on dementia, you can also follow Dr. Herrmann’s “Memory Doctor” blog for dementia caregivers at: http://health.sunnybrook.ca/memory-doctor/

On behalf of all the Havergal College students involved in this program, thank you for your continued support of the Dementia Awareness Program. It has been another successful year of this community initiative, following its inaugural year last year, and we hope to continue enriching the lives of individuals with dementia, advocating for this important cause, and de-stigmatizing the illness.

Professor Nathan Herrmann and Selina Chow (Student Chair)

Nathan Herrmann MD FRCPC

Professor, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto

Lewar Chair in Geriatric Psychiatry

Head, Division of Geriatric Psychiatry

Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre