.png)
Capturing Essence for Care: Storytelling that Promotes Personhood in Healthcare
Feeling overwhelmed by caregiving responsibilities? Struggling to stay present and patient when you're stretched thin? Transform your caregiving relationships in just minutes with evidence-based storytelling strategies that honour the whole person—not just their needs.
Listen for practical tools to:
- Open deeper conversations with aging loved ones, even when time is scarce
- Access life story approaches that reduce caregiver stress and burnout
- Hear real conversations with people with lived experience, including persons living with dementia
- Build meaningful connections that sustain you through the demands of caring
Host Lisa brings together personal historians, digital storytellers, healthcare practitioners, family caregivers, and seniors themselves. Each episode delivers actionable insights for anyone balancing multiple caregiving roles—whether you're supporting aging parents while raising children, managing care from a distance, or working in healthcare while caring for family.
Perfect for: The sandwich generation, family caregivers, adult children of aging parents, healthcare providers, long-term care staff, home health aides, personal support workers, memory care teams, social workers, activity staff, and anyone seeking to preserve dignity and connection in their caregiving relationships.
Join caregivers already transforming their relationships. Discover how small storytelling moments create profound connections—and give you the resilience to keep showing up with compassion.
Please join this community by following the show.
Capturing Essence for Care: Storytelling that Promotes Personhood in Healthcare
1. Living with Dignity: Dementia Advocate Mary Beth Wighton on Capturing Essence and Improving Healthcare
Join our discussion with Mary Beth Wighton, inspiring international dementia advocate, writer and speaker as we talk about what it's like living with a diagnosis of probable Frontal Temporal Dementia and learn how she captures her essence.
Our conversation covers:
- what receiving the diagnosis is like and the importance of bedside manner;
- coming to terms with a diagnosis not just for herself but for family;
- choosing to live with purpose and the role of being an advocate;
- creating culture and policy change through community;
- speaking up for our own needs and being a part of our own health care team;
- the importance of positive energy and connection;
- communicating our wishes with family and your most trusted supports;
- why words matter (Caregiver vs. Care Partner)
**Note: This episode was recorded in the fall of 2022.
Links mentioned:
- Mary Beth's book: Dignity & Dementia: Carpe Diem: My journals of living with dementia
- Murray Alzheimer Research and Education Program (MAREP)
- Canadian Dementia Strategy
Thank you for listening!
Do you have a question or a topic related to "capturing essence for care" that you would like discussed on the podcast? Send Lisa an email: awestruckaspirations@gmail.com
Interested in learning more?
Intro and outro music with thanks: Upbeat and Sweet No Strings by Musictown
