The Regional Coordinator for the Alzheimer’s Society is trying to end the stigma around the debilitating disease through a revamped annual program.

For the next two months, Jen Reimer will be hosting Minds In Motion sessions for people with Alzheimer’s and dementia, alongside their caregivers. As Reimer explains, the programming is intended to bring out memories and offer new experiences to individuals who may have lost many of their cognitive abilities.

“It gets them out and active and with the people who are going through the same things that they are.” The goal, she notes, is to create a worry-free atmosphere. “This is not a place where you will be judged, even if you struggle with speech you will be welcomed here.”

She defines dementia as“all-encompassing” and says it can exhibit itself in a wide variety of ways, most commonly memory loss and sudden personality change.

For Reimer, the motivation for holding these sessions is two-pronged. She does desperately want to help the people struggling with dementia its various related conditions, but she also wants to fight the negativity that so often surrounds the matter. Taking over 100 different forms, and affecting over 23,000 people province-wide, Reimer believes the disease is worth talking about. For that reason, this year she has moved Minds in Motion programming to a more accessible venue: The Pat Porter Active Living Centre.

Formerly, the sessions were held at a private residence which made them both more difficult to hear about and more difficult to find. Reimer believes switching locations will enable a greater number of people to make use of the opportunity while simultaneously bring the issue to the forefront of the public’s eye.

“There are so many people out here and who believe they would probably get a positive diagnosis but fear getting one and so they don’t reach out,” says Reimer, who hopes to see that change. 

The first Minds in Motion session was held this past Thursday and Reimer feels it Was benificial for those who attended.

“We got to hear a lot of stories,” she recalls. “The [caregivers] were surprised at all of the memories that were flooding out like they hadn’t in a long time.”

Reimer will continue to offer these sessions for the next seven consecutive Thursdays, from 10 PM to 12 PM, with the last session on Thursday, December 3rd. She invites anyone who is interested to either come by on those days or else contact her directly at alzse@alzheimer.mb.ca for more information.