Why am I doing this?

When my father was diagnosed with vascular dementia, I knew nothing about eldercare. I didn’t know what it meant to be a caregiver and the challenges that would face me in the coming years. My parents lived in a house that became less and less safe for them and my mother ended up falling a few times. While the onset of her Alzheimer's didn’t occur until years later, I knew it was time to find a safer place for them. And so, I began my research and started looking for a residence for them to live. After numerous visits and calls, I was lucky enough to eventually find a place that was both well managed and had all of what they needed.

Through this research, I made another discovery: how poor things looked in some residences. I would walk into some private care residences and all I saw were people sitting and waiting to pass on. No one was smiling, there didn’t seem to be any activities going on and only the minimum of care was guaranteed by staff members. As time went on and my parents needed more and more care, I delved into the world of eldercare, looking at the services that people and organizations had to offer. I realized there were two tiers of service: low-priced care, and high-priced care. I also found that there were many different services available, but that they were scattered. I found myself lost between what was offered, what was needed, and what was reasonably priced and to my disappointment, nothing was congruent or consistent. This is when the Canadian Eldercare Roadmap Initiative was born.