Alzheimer Society Blog

The Alzheimer Society of Ontario would like to thank all our research donors. Because of you, we are getting closer and closer to an Alzheimer miracle. Your donations directly benefit your parents, friends, colleagues, neighbours and members of your community living with Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias because “they provide more opportunities for access to cutting edge treatments and clinical trials right here in Ontario,” says Dr. Sharon Cohen, Medical Director of the Toronto Memory Program. Here are five critical…

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I remember as a graduate student at Dalhousie University, I saw the play, The Bear Came Over the Mountain. It’s the classic play about Alzheimer’s disease based on Alice Munroe’s book. For a long time afterwards, I thought about people affected by this disease and what their lives were like. It really touched me. Later, when my grandmother went into a nursing home after her stroke, I started to see residents there who were living with Alzheimer’s disease. I couldn’t…

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September is World Alzheimer’s Month, an international campaign to raise awareness and challenge stigma. In Ontario alone, 200,000 people are living with dementia. Within just a few years, the numbers will be staggering. Research is making new discoveries and giving new hope every day.  While we don’t yet have a cure, research helps develop drugs to delay the progression of the disease, support people with dementia and their caregivers and contribute to our understanding of the brain. We are dedicated…

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My mom had Alzheimer’s disease and when I was a home care nurse, many of my rural clients had it too. I’ve seen people try to care for someone with dementia when they live in an isolated area and can’t get the information and support they need. But the real demographic pressure will begin in 2021 when the first wave of baby boomers turns 75.  So I think we have a window of opportunity now to enhance people’s quality of…

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If you’re planning to visit someone with dementia, do you wonder, “What’s the point of visiting when they won’t even remember?” But just like us, people with dementia enjoy spending time with family and old friends. Susan Bithrey is a caregiver who has seen how beneficial visitors are to her husband Reg, who has early-onset Alzheimer’s disease.  When Reg was still living at home, the couple’s sons visited whenever they could from Edmonton and Burlington and took part in activities…

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Imagine giving people with Alzheimer’s disease a soundtrack of their life to help them remember who they are.  It’s the gift of a better life.  This is what the Alzheimer Society of Toronto’s (AST) “Music and Memory: iPod Project” does. With a grant to cover start-up costs, AST has already provided 300 iPods, complete with earphones, iTunes gift cards and volunteers to help upload the personalized playlists to participants for free. The idea came after the founder of this successful…

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The Council of the Federation identified dementia as an important priority issue today. What does this mean for Canadians living with dementia?

I’ve always been fascinated by the brain. How does it develop? Why does it degenerate? Despite all that we know, there is still so much that we don’t know about the brain and it’s exciting to be exploring these questions with so many bright people. In the past, many of us worked in silos. Everyone was busy in their own corners, doing their own thing. Now we are all working together. Geriatricians, neurologists, psychiatrists, neuroscientists – everyone is working collaboratively….

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The world around us impacts how we feel, behave and engage with others. We all want to live in an environment where we feel safe, comfortable and independent. People with dementia are the same.

Lindsay Butcher, the Acting Program manager at the Alzheimer Society of Peel, answers our questions about day programs. 1. What are adult day programs? Adult day programs offer social and recreational activity during the day in a supported and supervised environment. At the Alzheimer Society of Peel, our day programs cater to adults with cognitive impairments. We provide a wide variety of therapeutic programming to help clients maintain their current level mental and physical functioning, ultimately to help them stay…

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