Meet the recipients of Maude’s Awards:
2024 Organization Awardees
2024 Individual Awardees
2024 Honorable Mention
Organization Awardees
“ARTZ @ Jefferson: Opening Doors to Empathy Through the Arts” is an arts and dementia mentoring program in which future healthcare providers across the professions at Thomas Jefferson University, and other medical teaching centers in Philadelphia, learn from mentors affected by dementia and care partners about their lived experiences pre- and post-diagnosis.
Our evidence-based programs connect people with dementia and those they love with artists, cultural organizations, and each other. We help to build caring, supportive communities that restore and preserve the self-esteem and dignity.
“Recuerdos Perdidos/Lost Memories” is a powerful, innovative telenovela developed to educate Latinos about dementia. Telenovelas are soap operas that are very popular in Latin America. Season 1 of the telenovela, developed in 2017, focused on a family whose grandmother develops dementia. Season 2, developed in 2020, follows the same family as she declines, showing behavioral symptoms that stress the family. Each season has four episodes. The actors are all bilingual and bicultural. The telenovela can be viewed in either English or Spanish with subtitles for simultaneous viewing by family members with differing language preferences. They can be delivered online or in-person with or without a facilitated discussion led by a health educator.
UT Health San Antonio
Award Category:
Supporting Care Partners
The Caring for the Caregiver Program (C4CP) was established in response to community-identified needs for more comprehensive education and support for families living with dementia. This multi-service program provides education to support the transition into the caregiving role. The education and skills-training approach enhances knowledge and build caregiver confidence, and capacity in performing complex care tasks. Some of the most popular services are:
- the Memory Café, a quarterly gathering
- Tailored referrals for caregivers enrolled in the Telephone Reassurance Program
- Dementia Friendly San Antonio Advisory Council
- Essentials of Caregiving monthly educational series
- The Virtual Dementia Training
- The latest and newest service ,Health Digital Literacy workshops.
Individual Awardees
Arlieta Hall
“Finding Your Laughter”
Award Category: Making Connections
“I am a caregiver for my father who is a person with Alzheimer’s. I use improv and stand-up comedy to communicate with him and as therapy to process our experience.
While I was caregiving for him with my stepmother, I decided to take videos and post them on social media which ultimately led to the creation of a documentary. The film Finding Your Laughter follows me, my father and stepmother through the ups and downs of daily life. The film is for caregivers to feel validated, encouraged, and come away with tools.I became a Certified Dementia Communication Specialist in 2017 and in 2018 created “If Alzheimer’s Could Laugh” as an introductory workshop to caregiving for people with Alzheimer’s or dementia. The workshop covers what is improv and how to use it (interactive segment), tools to process caregiving challenges, enabling one to find humor in their lives and work, what laughter is capable of producing when interacting with others, including exclusive clips from my upcoming documentary.”
Theresa Montgomery
“T&L WTD Let’s Talk About It”
Award Category: Making Connections
T&L WTD Let’s Talk About It podcast
“As a person living with dementia, my journey inspires my work deeply. Despite the challenges, I am motivated to inspire others to live their best lives and make a positive difference. My experiences have taught me the importance of resilience, strength, and continuous learning. I am driven by a desire to empower individuals impacted by dementia, to encourage them to embrace life fully, and to advocate for greater awareness and support. My personal journey fuels my passion to create meaningful change and to ensure that others facing similar challenges feel empowered and supported along their own paths.
The program is a podcast called ‘T&L WTD Let’s Talk About It‘, where individuals living with dementia share personal stories, insights, and advocacy efforts. The outcome is increased awareness, support, and empowerment for the dementia community.”
Kristin Nelson
Audivi Memory Banks
Award Category: Making Connections
“I became the primary caregiver for my mother with Alzheimer’s (AD) after my father died. Like others with AD, she had no short-term memory but vivid long-term memories that she repeated all the time. I decided to record the memories and put them on a website with photos – more for us than for her – but saw the value of her memories when I happened to play them back for her. As she listened to her memories, she laughed, nodded, acted them out. Her voice paired with her photos took her back in time and mesmerized her. I realized that she not only liked telling those memories but liked hearing them. Her memories offered her comfort and familiarity in her otherwise confusing day, helped redirect her anxiety, gave her joy (which gave me joy), and remained an engaging activity even after she could no longer read books nor watch TV. Preserving memories for individuals with memory loss became my passion, and I founded a company, Audivi (Latin for ‘I heard’), to bring this tool to others.
Audivi is an app that lets individuals save, share, and enjoy memories in a personalized memory bank that can be made public, private, or shared. One can upload photos, and select a question about a photo and record the memory for playback.”
C. Nathaniel Brown
“Remember Me: Dementia in the African American Community”
Award Category: Supporting Care Partners
“My connection with dementia is personal. My grandmother and an uncle died with dementia, and I have two aunts living with it.
I began thinking of ways to educate loved ones and my community. I filmed a documentary called Remember Me: Dementia in the African American Community which provides valuable information on the disease, having interviewed those living with dementia, caregivers, clinical researchers, neuropsychologists, faith leaders, and others.
I submitted to about 30 film festivals and began screening the documentary in cities across the country, followed by panel discussions with dementia experts. I dubbed these events, ‘The Expose Dementia Tour.’
The Tour takes information directly to the people who need it most. It creates safe opportunities for people living with dementia and care partners to see they are not alone, gain valuable resources, and make connections with organizations such as caregiver support groups, respite services, and dementia experts.
Remember Me: Dementia in the African American Community is the beginning of a 5-part series that will provide more stories, more information and more resources for people living with dementia and their care partners.”
Honorable Mention
Cooley Dickinson Hospital – The Pioneer Valley Memory Care Initiative (PVMCI)
The Pioneer Valley Memory Care Initiative (PVMCI)
Award Category: Making Connections
Cooley Dickinson PVMCI website
The Pioneer Valley Memory Care Initiative (PVMCI) volunteer program began in 2020 and partners with the Amherst, Easthampton, and Northampton Neighbors organizations to match people living with dementia (PLD) and Alzheimer’s, and their caregivers, with trained volunteers. It is the only program in New England where multiple Village to Village membership-based organizations have come together to help build a supportive community for dementia-friendly care.
Dementia Action Alliance
“Pathways to Well-Being”
Award Category: Cultivating Health
Dementia Action Alliance website
Searching “books on dementia” on Amazon reveals 30,000 entries, but most cater to care partners rather than people directly affected. With early diagnoses now more common, there’s a growing need for resources that help people manage dementia proactively, focusing on self-care, resilience, and adapting to new challenges. Essential too is a supportive community and a comprehensive guide with practical strategies for living well. DAA has always been that supportive community; now, we present the “Pathways to Well-Being” manual to serve as the guide! The manual, released in 2022, stands out as the first of its kind, created by 50 people living with dementia, care partners, and dementia care professionals. The manual offers advice and inspiration, and champions active, enabled living, transforming apathy into empowerment. “Pathways to Well-Being” is available for free PDF download or as a purchasable print-on-demand book.
