Dementia Empowerment Network

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The Dementia Empowerment Network brings people living with memory changes together for connection and shared leadership.

We believe creating a better world means giving people with lived experience the voice and support in deciding what that looks like.

08/31/2026

Some grief arrives with a clear ending. Some doesn’t.

It can live in the space between what was familiar and what is changing - in a role that no longer feels the same, a routine that has shifted, or a relationship finding a new shape.

For those whose lives have been touched by memory changes, grief may be part of that experience too. Whatever shape it takes, there is space for it to be felt, named, and understood.

For many Indigenous people and communities, grief can also carry the weight of collective and intergenerational loss shaped by colonialism, including losses connected to family, land, language, culture, community, and belonging. These experiences are not all the same, and they are also held alongside strength, continuity, culture, relationship, and community knowledge.

Whatever grief looks like to you, personal, collective, recent, longstanding, visible or harder to name, there is space for it here.

Support and resources:
🔹 Bereaved Families of Ontario – Hamilton/Burlington: 905-318-0070
🔹 Hope for Wellness Help Line – 1-855-242-3310
🔹 MyGrief.ca: https://www.mygrief.ca/
🔹 Research Institute for Aging, Living and Transforming with Loss & Grief: A By Us For Us Guide https://lnkd.in/gu_64TXw

08/27/2026

The 2024 Lancet Commission on Dementia Prevention identified 14 modifiable risk factors for dementia. Hearing loss was the single largest of them, linked to an estimated 7% of dementia cases worldwide.

*Worth being clear about what that number does and doesn’t mean: it comes from observational studies, not a proven cause-and-effect. In fact, the one major clinical trial testing whether treating hearing loss actually prevents cognitive decline found no significant overall effect. Although this isn’t a guarantee that treating hearing loss prevents dementia, it is a strong, consistent association that researchers are still working to fully understand.

What the research does support: getting hearing checked is a small, low-risk step with real potential upside, and untreated hearing loss on its own affects communication, connection, and quality of life regardless of what it turns out to mean for long-term brain health.

Source: Livingston, G. et al. (2024). Dementia prevention, intervention, and care: 2024 report of the Lancet Standing Commission. The Lancet, 404(10452), 572–628.

08/22/2026

Albert Marshall spent most of his youth in Canada’s residential school system, denied the chance to learn his own people’s teachings until later in life. Two-Eyed Seeing, the guiding principle he introduced decades later in 2004, carries that history quietly within it: a practice built by someone who knows exactly what it costs when a person is forced to abandon one of their own ways of seeing the world.

We’re sharing this because so much of dementia care still operates from a single framework, treating the clinical view as the only complete one. Two-Eyed Seeing offers a real, tested alternative: understanding built from more than one vantage point, holding both as equally whole. That’s the standard we believe culturally safe care should be held to, not as an add-on, but as the actual practice.

This week, we’re looking at Etuaptmumk, “the gift of multiple perspectives”, what it actually means, how it’s practiced, and what it can look like specifically for memory changes. Swipe through 👉

Marshall has cautioned that the concept can easily be flattened once it leaves its original context: reduced to jargon, romanticized, or treated as a checklist rather than genuine co-learning between two distinct, equally whole ways of knowing. That’s worth naming here too. What we’re sharing is one entry point into a principle with real depth behind it, not the whole of it, and we’d encourage anyone drawn to it to read Marshall and Bartlett’s own writing directly.

08/19/2026

August 19 is World Humanitarian Day, established by the UN to recognize humanitarian workers around the world and remember those who have lost their lives while helping people affected by crisis.

The scale and circumstances of humanitarian work are distinct, but the day also gives us an opportunity to think about something that matters close to home: what it means to keep showing up for one another. At DEN, we see that in the relationships surrounding people living with memory changes like family and friends who provide care over years, volunteers who return week after week, community partners who make space for connection, and people living with memory changes themselves who contribute their time, knowledge and support to others. Care takes many forms. So does showing up for one another.

Today, we recognize the humanitarian workers this day was created to honour and reflect on the communities of care we each help create.

08/12/2026

Did you know many young people help take care of a parent or grandparent living with dementia? This can mean helping with meals, medications, or just being there when things feel hard. It takes patience and love, and it is not always easy.

On International Youth Day, we want to recognize young caregivers and the quiet work they do every day.

If this sounds like you, know that you are not alone, and Dementia Empowerment Network can help connect you with others so you can start a peer-support group of your own. 💛

08/09/2026

Today, August 9, marks the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples. This year’s UN theme is “Honouring Indigenous Midwives: Safeguarding Life and Well-being,” recognizing Indigenous midwives as central holders of traditional knowledge in pregnancy, childbirth, and community health, and calling for that knowledge to be respected alongside, not replaced by, formal healthcare systems.

Midwifery isn’t our area of direct work, but the throughline is one we recognize closely. Whether it’s a midwife guiding a birth or an Elder guiding a diagnosis, Indigenous communities have long carried care knowledge that formal health systems have too often ignored or displaced. The same call for recognition being made for midwives this year is the one we’ve been exploring in our recent posts on culturally safe dementia care: care that includes traditional knowledge and practice, not care that treats it as separate from clinical medicine.

Indigenous Peoples make up roughly 476 million people across about 90 countries and more than 5,000 distinct cultures, each carrying knowledge systems and care traditions of their own. Today’s a good day to sit with that scale, and with how much of that knowledge survives not because it was written down, but because it was carried, person to person, generation to generation.

We’re grateful for the partnerships that shape our own work in this space, and for everything we still have to learn.

Source: UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Division for Inclusive Social Development, International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples 2026.

08/05/2026

There are numerous Indigenous cultures, each with their own practices and differences. But for many, culture and care cannot be separated. Denying someone their culture in care can be seen as denying care altogether.

This week, we’re looking at the barriers Indigenous communities face in accessing dementia diagnosis and care, and the work in motion to address them. Swipe through ➡️

A few things worth knowing beyond what’s on the slides: many of these barriers trace back further than they first appear. Higher rates of chronic conditions like diabetes and hypertension are not isolated, they are tied to the lasting effects of colonization and residential schools, including the shift away from traditional diets and ways of life. And it’s not just structural gaps keeping people from care: fear and mistrust shaped by real experiences of racism in the healthcare system, along with the stigma around dementia itself, can delay someone from seeking a diagnosis in the first place.

Although culturally safe care looks different in every community, some themes consistently show up again and again in the research: Indigenous languages and interpreters, storytelling in place of clinical question-and-answer, family involved at every step, and traditional medicine treated as complementary to clinical care, not separate from it.

Worth naming a limit here too: most of this research centers First Nations experiences. Evidence specific to Inuit and Métis communities is much thinner, this is one piece of a larger, more varied picture, not the whole of it.

There’s much more to say on this topic than one post can hold, particularly when it comes to community-specific practices, knowledge, and lived experiences.

08/03/2026

Happy Civic Holiday from everyone at Dementia Empowerment Network! We hope you have a relaxing long weekend with the people you love. 🌞

07/31/2026

Today we’re celebrating Julian as she wraps up her 12-week placement with the Dementia Empowerment Network.

From day one, Julian approached every opportunity with curiosity, compassion, and a genuine desire to learn. Her thoughtful questions, dedication, and positive spirit enriched our team, and we’re grateful for everything she contributed during her time with us.

Thank you, Julian! The DEN family is cheering you on as you take your next steps, and we know you’ll continue to make a meaningful difference wherever you go. 💚

07/28/2026

Every few years we ask the people in our groups how things are going. Not just whether they are showing up, but how they are actually feeling. And we wanted to share what they told us in our 2025 evaluation.

People talked about friendships they had made, about having somewhere to be and something to look forward to. About feeling less alone. About finding a sense of purpose again. About hope.

That is what these groups are about. If you have been thinking about joining, or know someone who might benefit, we would love to connect you with a group in your area.

Address

780 Upper Wentworth Street
Hamilton, ON

Website

http://www.denvoices.ca/

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