Episode Summary
Most dementia care advice focuses on managing symptoms and behaviours. Dr. Al Power, a geriatrician and one of the most influential voices in person-centred dementia care, argues for a different starting point: well-being. Rather than asking how to stop a behaviour, he asks what unmet need that behaviour is expressing.
Melissa Therrien, RN, brings the front-line view from inside thousands of Alberta and BC homes, where Ohana Care’s caregivers support people living with dementia every day. Together they translate Dr. Power’s experiential model out of the long-term care setting where it is usually discussed and into the reality of a private home, where the caregiver is often a spouse or adult child, the environment cannot be redesigned, and support is stretched thin. The result is a practical, hopeful conversation about meeting a person living with dementia where they are.
Key Themes
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- • The goal of dementia care is well-being, not just the management of symptoms.
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- • Distress and difficult behaviour are usually communication of an unmet need, not problems to be eliminated.
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- • Medication, especially antipsychotics, is too often the first response when the real cause goes unexamined.
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- • The experiential model can be applied at home, not only in care communities, with small changes to environment, routine, and connection.
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- • Family caregivers carry an enormous emotional load, and bringing trained support into the home relieves pressure and models a calmer approach.
- • A dementia diagnosis is not the end of a meaningful life. Joy, connection, and growth remain possible.
- • Supporting identity, autonomy, and meaning matters as much as safety and physical care.
Guest Bio
Dr. Al Power (G. Allen Power) is an internist, geriatrician, educator, and author internationally recognized for his work challenging the overuse of antipsychotic medications in dementia care. He holds the Schlegel Chair in Aging and Dementia Innovation at the Research Institute for Aging in Waterloo, Ontario, and is a Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Rochester. He is the author of Dementia Beyond Drugs: Changing the Culture of Care, named a Book of the Year by the American Journal of Nursing, and Dementia Beyond Disease: Enhancing Well-Being. A trained musician and songwriter, he speaks around the world on transforming the culture of care for people living with dementia.
Featured Resources
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- • Dementia Beyond Drugs: Changing the Culture of Care, by Dr. Al Power
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- • Dementia Beyond Disease: Enhancing Well-Being, by Dr. Al Power
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- • ChangingAging (changingaging.org), Dr. Power’s writing and platform
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- • Research Institute for Aging (the-ria.ca)
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- • Alzheimer Society of Calgary (alzheimercalgary.ca), local education and support.
