Upcoming webinar: how arts strengthen their caregiving resiliency
A group of caregivers will share insights about how a connection to arts (across different media) has supported their health and resilience on the dementia journey.
A caregiver plays an important role in the life of many people living with dementia. While caregiving can be a rewarding process, it can also be stressful and demanding. In one of our upcoming webinars, a group of caregivers will share insights about how a connection to arts (across different media) has supported their health and resilience on the dementia journey.
In B.C. alone, more than 50,000 care partners – family members, friends or neighbours – are currently supporting people living with dementia, with almost 68 million support hours provided in 2022. Finding interests and passions beyond caregiving can help reduce emotional stress and avoid burnout. In this webinar, the presenters will discuss the value of having a creative outlet and provide suggestions about how to get started with one's own artistic exploration as a way of coping and finding meaning as a caregiver for someone living with dementia.
“I have found that being creative helps me get to deep areas of my being, where fragile emotions reside and are difficult to explain or even acknowledge,” says Lorraine de la Morandiere, one of the webinar guest speakers, who has years of experience caregiving for family members on the dementia journey. “Allowing myself to sink into the creative process enables me to gently reveal, validate and soothe those raw feelings.”
"We hope to encourage all caregivers to find unique ways to relieve caregiving stress," says Lori Kelly, Provincial Coordinator at the Alzheimer Society of B.C. "Artistic and creative activities can help you understand and reflect about yourself, which is a way to embrace self care. By sharing your art with others, you also receive community support, encouragement and inspiration so that they – and you – don't feel alone, isolated and withdrawn."
The webinar, "Lived experience: Caregivers' creative expression of the dementia journey," takes place on Wednesday, November 23, at 2 p.m. PT (90 minutes).
Click here to register for this webinar.
About our guest speakers
Herb Bryce
Herb Bryce was the almost sole caregiver to his wife Ann for close to 13 years. The experience turned Herb to poetry, by way of coping and digging out of depression. He wrote a book of poetry as a result, called Chasing a Butterfly: A journey in poems of love and loss to acceptance. He was a judge at Rabindranath Tagore International, English Poetry Competition in 2017 and is a regular blogger at Herb W. Bryce blog.
Kamal Parmar
Nanaimo poet and writer Kamal Parmar has been passionately involved in writing for the last 20 years and has written several books. Kamal believes in the healing power of poetry and says it helped her to untangle the emotional knots of being a caregiver to her mother. Currently, she is an associate member of the League of Canadian Poets, a Board member of the Federation of BC Writers, and a member of The Writers Union of Canada, the Canadian Authors Association and Haiku Canada. She is also the current Poet Laureate of Nanaimo.
Lorraine de la Morandiere
Lorraine de la Morandiere lives in Vancouver and has many years of experience caregiving for people on the dementia journey. Lorraine has been a long-distance caregiver—first supporting her sister in Ontario, who was caring for their mother, and then caring for her sister, who is now living with dementia herself. She also supported her uncle in-law on his own dementia journey. Lorraine is a former art therapist and is now a member of the Delta Music Makers, a community band. She finds using a “create to cope” approach is vital for successfully navigating the complexities of caregiving.
Cindy Gierach
Cindy Gierach is a caregiver who has been supporting her husband, Lester, since he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 2019. Cindy and Lester were honourees for the 2022 IG Wealth Management Walk for Alzheimer's in Burnaby and New Westminster. They are both active in their community's Friendly Dementia Café, Seniors Memory Club, and Caregiver Luncheons. Cindy and Lester were also participants of the In There Out Here: Art Making Space to Live Well With Dementia, a virtual exhibition featuring the artworks of people living with dementia and their caregivers. Cindy loves walking outside in nature and finds joy and calm in creating art and reading children's picture books from the library.