Melissa Summers is a Personal Support Worker (PSW) with Providence Care working with the Mobile Response Team in Lanark, Leeds & Grenville. She is an invaluable resource in the community, assisting with assessment, behavioural care planning, and transitional support for residents of long-term care homes across the area. Melissa, also most impressively, just received a certification as a DementiAbility trainer, making her the first PSW in the Southeast region to receive the designation.

“What is DementiAbility? It’s right there in the title,” says Melissa. “It’s a practice that focuses on the abilities that are preserved in someone who is suffering with dementia.”

Melissa receives referrals to support individuals in long-term care who may have or are at risk for responsive behaviour that may be associated with dementia, late onset complex mental health, substance use and/or other neurological conditions. She also provides extra assistance to those transitioning to a long-term-care home. Melissa and her team come up with non-pharmaceutical approaches to care using best practices like DemntiaAbility, and teach it to other professionals who work directly with those individuals.

“I think for a long-time dementia and mental health challenges have been looked at as sad or debilitating. With DementiAbility, we’re supporting people’s abilities so they can maintain them right to the end of their life. This helps give purpose and meaning in everyday life. It’s very rewarding.”

Gail Elliot, BASc, MA, Author, Gerontologist & Dementia Specialist, is the Founder and CEO of DementiAbility Enterprises Inc. Her vison is to change the face of dementia through educating health care professionals and family care partners to understand the connections between the brain, a person’s life story, the environment and behaviour.

“Melissa is the first and only PSW in the Southeast region to have achieved DementiAbility Trainer Certification,” wrote Gail. “When Melissa completed her DementiAbility Certification it became clearly evident that she understands the DementiAbility methods, and knows how to apply the many and diverse concepts and tools that can be called upon when problem-solving and working towards positive outcomes in dementia care. Hence, we invited her to become a DementiAbility trainer”.

Melissa says using DementiAbility skills includes setting up memory supports for individuals like agendas, wayfinding and task breakdown signage. It can also look like repetitive procedural teachings, like how to dress or feed oneself. Most importantly though, Melissa says it is approaching care from a place of understanding the whole person.

“Maybe there’s a person who has been deemed a night wanderer but then you learn they worked as a night nurse during their career and were up all night checking in on their patients. When caring for individuals we need to know their history, their work history, how they spent time with their families on the weekend; all of that comes into play depending on where the person goes in their dementia journey,” adds Melissa.

Melissa says during her certification she had so many ‘ah ha’ moments about why things work and don’t work. She says this certification has helped establish a foundation to the knowledge and practice she was doing every day.

“As a PSW, things can become very task orientated but we need to slow down to understand the person, maybe explaining what’s happening and why and perhaps that needs to happen all the time for many consecutive moments. When we do that, things go a long way.”

It’s been about six months since Melissa received her DementiaAbility trainer certification and she’s already run an educational session at Providence Care Hospital for her colleagues. It’s her hope to continue her education and become a registered professional all the while teaching others all that she’s learned in her 13 year-long career.

“I really love education and the way we facilitate change is in educating ourselves, staying up to date and challenging ourselves. I’m really passionate about that and I have an amazing team who supports growth, both personally and in my career.”

Providence Care is grateful to have people like Melissa on our team. Congratulations Melissa!