A clinician in my Mental Health + Aging Certificate program recently asked a question. He was reflecting on the opening module — the one where I lay the foundation for who we are providing therapy for, where I explore intersecting identities, share important statistics, and name the harm created by queerphobia, racism, classism, and other […]

What kind of world are we living in where a person who needs assisted living—someone with dementia, functional disabilities, or frailty—can be detained by ICE?   A recent email from Lori Smetanka, Executive Director of the National Consumer Voice for Quality Long-Term Care, revealed that a resident from a small assisted living facility was taken […]

A couple years ago, I worked with Mr. Davis, a Black man who was 85 and held a strong Jehovah’s Witness faith.  He was in therapy due to a recent separation from his wife. This resulted in lowering his position in his Jehovah’s Witness congregation. New medical issues were cropping up and he was exploring […]

The stories of deaf older adults and their families need to be shared and heard. For the past couple of years, I have been following and sharing the story of MJ Grant and her experience with caring for her mom, Carmen, who is deaf and living with dementia. A couple of months ago, MJ made […]

Over 75% of adults with developmental disabilities live at home with family. There is a growing population of aging caregivers of adults with developmental disabilities, in part due to increased lifespan and extensive waiting lists for residential services (The Arc Autism Now). In honor of World Autism Day, we’re providing tips to aging caregivers who […]

In honor of world AIDS day on 12/1, I am devoting today’s episode to HIV and Aging. And, yes. HIV is an important topic when it comes to aging. An estimated 1.2 million people in the United States had HIV at the end of 2018. More than half of the adults living in the US […]

With older adults being more likely to vote than any other age group and dementia affecting older adults more than any other age group, questions about dementia and voting naturally arise! Can people with dementia vote? Like most things related to voting, there’s concern and controversy. Everything from personal opinions from caregivers, like: “This is […]

Coronavirus: Isolate the Elderly was the sign on the freeway that I would see twice a day as I drove to and from work at a busy medical center in a Geropsychiatry Outpatient Clinic to provide tele-therapy to older adults and their families during COVID. I cringed every time I drove past this sign. Since […]

With the recent murders of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd, there has been an important spotlight on racial injustice in this country and the toll that these injustices have taken on Black lives. As a Geropsychologist working in Atlanta, a City in Georgia known for its history of slavery and Civil Rights, many […]

  Dementia is one of the most important, but often overlooked, health care issues related to older African Americans.   In fact, research shows that African Americans are two to three times more likely to develop a dementia disorder (compared to European Americans) and at the same time are less likely to be diagnosed early in the disease process […]

  In this second interview with MJ Grant, MJ shares the most intimate details of an end of life conversation she had with her dad, Manley “Mannie” Grant.   In this interview, MJ also shares about how it was discovered that her dad was deaf and the information that his family received from professionals about […]

In this first of a two-part interview,  I have the incredible honor of interviewing Mary Jane, “MJ”, Grant about her experiences with caring for her mom with dementia. You may remember MJ Grant’s video that went viral, called “Dementia Can Be Beautiful”. It’s had more than 2.2 million views (on Facebook alone!) and shows MJ and […]