As we come to the end of our fourth year of the Dementia Awareness Program, we are happy to say that we have been able to carry on our vision of raising awareness and addressing the stigma surrounding dementia through this blog and our dedicated student team who volunteer at a local seniors’ residence weekly.
We are now in our fourth year of the community partnership between Havergal College and Briton House retirement home in Toronto, Canada. A group of six students and two dedicated advisors visited residents living with dementia weekly. Throughout our time together, we got to know the residents by chatting one and one with them and in small group settings. This year, we added some new popular activities during our visits, such as knitting, board games, and mail delivery. Knitting was new for some of the students, but the residents were great teachers! By delivering mail - such as letters, magazines, and postcards - to the residents' rooms, we were also able to reach out and have a great conversation with other residents at the retirement home that we did not get to interact with during our weekly visits. The residents seemed to really enjoy this time with us! Another exciting activity this year was a singing performance by our students that turned into a sing-along with the residents' favourite childhood songs like "Unto the Hills". This was a big hit and many residents came up to us afterwards to say how much they enjoyed and appreciated the sing-along. Interestingly, some of the residents were alumni from our school, Havergal College, and we were able to hear fun stories about their time at Havergal and favourite school events. Our weekly visits to Briton House impacted not only the seniors' lives, but also our lives significantly. It was such an amazing opportunity and we cannot wait to come back next year!
On behalf of the Dementia Awareness Program, we would like to thank all of our student volunteers and teacher advisors from Havergal College for their dedication and ongoing support this year. We would also like to sincerely thank the residents and staff at Briton House for allowing us to visit weekly and create countless memories together.
To our readers, thank you for following our monthly blog series this year, and we hope that you have been able to learn more about the resources and support available for dementia patients and caregivers through Canadian organizations, as well as the National Dementia Strategy. For those of you who are affected by dementia directly or indirectly, we hope that our blog series has introduced you to helpful resources that you can use or get involved with.
Lastly, we would like to sincerely thank Dr. Herrmann for his continued support and guidance over the program and this blog for the past four years. Most notably, we would like to thank him for sharing his insight with all of us and providing a clinician / researcher’s perspective on Canada’s first ever National Dementia Strategy. For more 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 and engagement with the Dementia Awareness Program!
Professor Nathan Herrmann and Student Executive Team
Chair Selina Chow
Vice-Chair Sae Furukawa
Vice-Chair Katie Taub
Nathan Herrmann MD FRCPC
Professor, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto
Lewar Chair, Geriatric Psychiatry
Head, Division of Geriatric Psychiatry
Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre
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