Montessori Dementia Care
Struggling with dementia care? Loved one or resident exhibiting “challenging” behaviors such as repetitive questions, rummaging, and wandering? Are they struggling to do daily activities like personal care, paying bills, and eating?
Montessori care is unlike the traditional dementia care we typically see. The research on Montessori care shows that most of the “challenging behaviors” we see in dementia care don’t have to happen and they are not “just part of dementia.” It also shows that people with dementia can do things, even late into dementia. They can cook, clean, play games, do art, volunteer, build things, fix things, and engage in everyday life.
If you are looking for a better kind of dementia care that maintains dignity, meaning and purpose by creating environments that work with the brain, not against it, then you are in the right place.
Join our newsletter to learn more about dementia care:
Award Winning Author!
Creative Connections in Dementia Care ® is a Silver Award Winner in the 2016 National Health Information Awards which honor the nation’s best consumer health programs and materials.
Your Dementia Care Specialist
Rev. Katie Norris
Rev. Katie, M.Div. has been working in dementia care and brain health for 15 years. She was is the first person in the world to become an AMI Montessori in Dementia Care Practitioner.
She first started on her journey with dementia care and brain health with her mom who had Lewy Body Dementia. Katie, her husband, and son (6 years old at the time) moved in with her parents to help care for her mother, and she quickly found that families are given no resources for actual dementia care. How could she keep her mom engaged in life, still being able to cook and engage in art? How could she handle her mom’s hallucinations and anxiousness? The doctors said there was no way to help her mom, and hired care professionals also did not know what to do.
Katie decided to learn dementia care and became a Montessori Based Dementia Care specialist. She taught dementia care to other families in her community and eventually took her education online and now runs a membership for family care partners and teaches professional trainings and offers courses for dementia care professionals.
She is the primary author of Creative Connections in Dementia Care®: Engaging Activities to Enhance Communication and is featured in the book “The Joy of Movement” by Dr. Kelly McGonigal.
Rev. Katie is also the co-founder of the Carolyn L. Farrell Foundation for Brain Health and is a Unitarian Universalist Community Minster. She previously worked with Brush Development Company, training others in the Association Montessori International Montessori Based Dementia Care Practitioners Certification.
Certifications/Trainings/Education:
- AMI Montessori for Aging and Dementia Practitioners Certification
- Board Certified Health and Fitness Coach
- OMA: Opening Minds Through Art Certification
- The Ready State Mobility Coach: TRS-C
- Z-Health: R-Phase and I-Phase Practitioner
- Primal Health Coaching Institute: Certified Primal Health Coach
- M.Div.: Meadville Lombard Theological School
Certifications
