McGill Cares - Encouraging Leisure Activities for Persons Living with Dementia

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, it became necessary for the McGill School of Physical and Occupational Therapy to offer alternative clinical learning experiences for their students. This challenge became an unexpected opportunity to help meet the needs of community partners as the students turned to the online world with the goal of creating projects that would be relevant and useful for their clients. For their final project in the new Health Innovator Student Incubator Engines clinical course, graduate occupational therapy students Nicole Drinkwater, Emma Vadot, Madde Macdougall and Chrissy MacDonald developed an activity booklet for caregivers and their loved ones who are living with dementia. They worked together to create a detailed guide that would encourage individuals to engage in the activities that they enjoy, aligned with their interests and abilities, in order to contribute to their sense of self, promote creativity and add to their quality of life. The end result is a very engaging virtual toolkit that offers over 40 recreational activities, in six different categories, with instructions on how to adapt the activities to the needs of the individual. CLICK HERE for more information and to download the booklet. Original Air Date: September 9, 2020 McGill Cares is a weekly webcast series designed to support informal caregivers. During candid, 30-minute interviews with leading experts, Claire Webster, Alzheimer Care Consultant and Founder of the McGill Dementia Education Program, explores topics related to caring for a loved one with dementia. For more information about the McGill Dementia Education Program or to make a donation, please visit www.mcgill.ca/dementia. If you have specific topics or questions that you would like us to address during our weekly webcasts, please email us at [email protected].