About the Speaker

Prof. Joel Sadavoy

Prof. Sadavoy lives and works in Toronto, Canada where he is Professor of psychiatry in the Faculty of Medicine and Institute of Medical Sciences at the University of Toronto. He has held many University, hospital, national and International leadership positions, and currently is the Medical Director of the Reitman Centre for Alzheimer’s Support and Training at Sinai Health, Medical Director of the Province of Ontario’s Enhancing Care for Ontario Carepartners Dementia Program, and Senior Clinician Scientist in the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute at Sinai Health. He was the founding president of the Canadian Academy of Geriatric Psychiatry, and a past president of the International Psychogeriatric Association. He maintains an active clinical practice in geriatric psychiatry in Toronto where his current clinical and research interests are focused on family caregivers managing persons with dementia at home. His work and writing includes developing models for bringing service delivery projects to scale, psychotherapeutic treatment of the elderly, personality disorders in old age and service delivery to ethnocultural elders.
SPEECH TITLE
Dementia and Family Caregivers: Evidence-based Assessment, Intervention and System Change
Abstract
There have been many advances in understanding the etiology, brain mechanisms, diagnostic approaches and promising treatments for dementia. However, most of these have not yet translated into significant practical day-to-day dementia management. For now, techniques of dementia management remain largely low tech interpersonal and environmental. Most persons with dementia live at home in the community the main treatment instrument for dementia is the family caregiver who is untrained to manage the complexities of dementia. Caregivers, particularly those who are older themselves, are a highly vulnerable at-risk population. While caregiving has many satisfactions it imposes chronic strain that can overwhelm the strongest most determined caregiver leading to significant risks of physical and mental disorders. This presentation will examine the challenges and impact of dementia caregiving, evidence-based methods of evaluating caregiver risks of decompensation, and the special challenges of family caregivers who are sandwiched between their job and caregiving. The Reitman Centre Carers program and the Ontario Canada Enhancing Care for Caregivers program will be presented as models of a widely disseminated evidence -based service delivery model to sustain family caregivers in their challenging journey.
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