Mental Clarity is Wealth instructor and community facilitator
My name is Kristie Miner. In September of 2022, I launched Sensei Economics with my husband, Aaron Hoshide, AKA “Sensei.” In October of 2024, after a 2 year reprieve from direct healthcare work, I found myself attending to the personal care needs of a woman in her early 60s with memory problems. As I began working with the team of people providing one on one care in her home, it became apparent just how fortunate I was to have had incredible learning experiences to prepare me for this role. These include:
· 15 years experience working with an outstanding team of professional caregivers in an all Alzheimer’s care facility as the admissions coordinator for the nursing home and assisted living units as well as the adult day program director. I learned from the nursing assistants, families, nurses, therapists, housekeepers and medical staff, including our medical director, a geriatrician (opposite age spectrum from a pediatrician).
· 17 years experience as a support group facilitator for the Alzheimer’s Association, Maine Chapter. I look back fondly, especially during my time as a pregnant and young mother, being in the midst of beautiful people coming together two evenings a month to learn and share tips about caregiving challenges. I would often say that I learned more from them than they did from me!
· As a teenager, I assisted in the care of my great grandmother. Even when I went across country for graduate school to become a speech language pathologist, I kept up my weekly written correspondence with her as I knew she loved receiving mail. During my final trip home before she died, my parents were woken up early in the morning by the phone, “Is Kristie home?” An early riser myself, I went up the meadow to visit her at her home. She was tickled “to finally meet Kristie, the girl who kept sending her all those letters!”
· I book ended my time of working in administration in the all Alzheimer’s care facility mentioned above as a speech language pathologist in a variety of settings, including home health, hospitals, and nursing homes. As a speech therapist, I work to help patients (in my case mostly people with strokes, dementia, Parkinson’s disease, and other neurological conditions) and their families improve communication, maximize cognition for independence and safety, and improve nutrition and reduce risk of pneumonia when people are having problems swallowing. As a member of the rehabilitation team, I worked closely with physical and occupational therapists who imparted great knowledge and insight.
· In 2021, our family experienced a trial whereby our oldest son, 16 at the time, suddenly demonstrated severe memory problems and difficulty sleeping and concentrating. In short, he acted like the patients with dementia that I had served for over 20 years. Through his path to wellness, 3 new tools were introduced into my understanding of brain health. I incorporate this information into my own preventative care and share in the Brain Health for you and your Family module.
After coming home from spending time with my new personal care client, I would relay to my husband some of the insights that I had shared with the team regarding suggestions for her care. He declared, “you need to be doing this work.” And so, the Mental Clarity is Wealth community was born so that others may be empowered to act as confident care managers in the care of their loved ones and also work toward improving and preserving their own brain health for the wealth of their family.