(News Release) New Ontario program to sustain family and unpaid caregivers providing care at home to people living with dementia

Enhancing Care for Ontario Care Partners will support families or other unpaid caregivers who are providing care at home to people living with dementia. Through this program, and in close collaboration with the Alzheimer Societies of Ontario, sites in each of Ontario’s 14 LHIN regions will be funded to hire professional staff to be trained by the Reitman Centre to deliver its innovative, evidence-based skills-training and emotional support interventions. The goal is to help caregivers across the province deal with the stress and complexities of dementia caregiving. The program will be made available to 15,000 people caring for a loved one with dementia over the first three years of the Dementia Strategy.

Enhancing Care for Ontario Care Partners is part of the Ontario government’s new Dementia Strategy and will include:

• Reitman Centre developed face-to-face group programs for family or other unpaid caregivers caring for those with dementia at home.
• Live video conference group services developed by the Reitman Centre across Ontario
• Online suite of resources, mentoring and peer consultation to caregivers.
• Development of dementia care resources for primary care clinicians.
• Training for health professionals.

The Enhancing Care for Ontario Care Partners program has begun implementation across Ontario, and the first partner agencies have started active intake of caregivers to the program.

An estimated 214,000 Ontarians live with dementia, and that number is expected to double in the next 20 years.

“We know, from our research and daily experience with caregivers at our Reitman Centre program based at Mount Sinai Hospital, that these interventions to support family members and other unpaid caregivers who are struggling are effective and impactful.  But we also know that there is a significant unmet need across Ontario for people who haven’t been able to access this kind of support. We are very grateful for this investment by the Ontario government, which will help improve the quality of life for many Ontarians caring for loved ones,” Dr. Joel Sadavoy, Medical Director of Enhancing Care for Ontario Care Partners, and of the Cyril & Dorothy, Joel & Jill Reitman Centre for Alzheimer’s Support and Training, Sinai Health System.

To learn more about the Cyril & Dorothy, Joel & Jill Reitman Centre for Alzheimer’s Support and Training, click here.

About Sinai Health System

Sinai Health System is comprised of Mount Sinai Hospital, Bridgepoint Active Healthcare, Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute and Circle of Care. As an integrated health system, it delivers exceptional care from healthy beginnings to healthy aging, especially for people with specialized and complex health needs, in hospital, community and home. Sinai Health System discovers and translates scientific breakthroughs, develops practical health solutions, educates future clinical and scientific leaders and leads efforts to eliminate health inequities. Its Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute ranks in the top ten biomedical research institutes in the world. Sinai Health System is a full affiliate of the University of Toronto. www.sinaihealthsystem.ca

For more information or to arrange an interview, please contact:

Sally Szuster
Senior Manager, Communications and Public Affairs
Sinai Health System
416 586-4800 ext. 8713
[email protected]