Steve Wilson is a Care Consultant for the Alzheimer’s Association® WA State Chapter. As an on-site collaborator at the Memory Hub, he helps people with memory loss and care partners get connected to helpful resources for via free in-person, phone, or virtual consults. Serving people at the Memory Hub means he can also connect families to a wide array of engagement, education, and support opportunities. Steve has been around caregivers and people living with memory loss for his whole career, through his work in memory care units, assisted living homes, nursing homes, continuing care retirement communities, and hospice care. He has also worked in long-term care for many years as a music therapist.
Interview by Genevieve Wanucha
You work as a Care Consultant at the Alzheimer’s Association WA State Chapter, which is a Memory Hub collaborator. You have helped fill the role of the Memory Navigator at the Memory Hub. Can you describe what you do for the Memory Hub?
In the free 30-minute Memory Navigator consult appointments at the Memory Hub, I help people navigate their situation, wherever they are in the moment. Sometimes it's helping folks with behaviors and communication. Sometimes it's helping them find a path to a Power of Attorney or elder law attorneys. Sometimes, it's helping someone figure out next steps and directing them towards getting a diagnosis. Sometimes it's driving and safety wandering, the move to long term care or future planning. We come up with some action steps together and they leave with a bunch of resources.
Can you share about your experience in music therapy with people living with memory loss?
I've worked in long-term care for many years as a music therapist. It's a powerful way to reach somebody when they have memory loss. Music helps a person connect with who they are now, and usually in a beautiful, non-threatening way. It doesn't feel like work. I think because there's such an emotional component to music, memories or feelings about music and song tend to stay accessible for a person living with memory loss.
Music gives people a chance to create positive memories with their loved ones, their caregivers, with themselves. When people make music together, they make a positive memory and association with each other that will probably last them for the rest of their relationship. I think that is so powerful.
What are some ways you have witnessed of the Memory Navigator program having an impact in people’s lives?
When people come in, I can often see how nervous and afraid they are, and when they leave, they just don't have that body language. They leave less afraid. I hear things like, "I can do this" and "I have a place to start". To have a service where someone can hold space for you to answer some of your hard questions and talk about next steps, I think that just takes such a burden off people's shoulders.
I remember a virtual appointment with someone who lives in another country. It was so helpful to them that they contacted their local Seattle-based family members to follow up with me. I think it's amazing that, through the Memory Navigator consult program, someone in another country was able to get their family members connected to resources.
What do you appreciate about being part of the Memory Hub team?
I think it's just amazing to be able to be part of this space, because it really is unique and magical. It is an honor to be a part of it, truthfully. I have a lot of opportunities to get my hands in different things and use different parts of my brain. Many of us on-site collaborators here at the Memory Hub have different day jobs and different goals, and so when we interact with one another, we're not getting another person just like us. We're getting somebody with a different lens on the world, and part of why I think this is such a creative space.
Can you give us a highlight from 2024?
I think the 2024 highlight is the story of why the Memory Navigator program expanded at the Memory Hub. I originally joined the Memory Hub this year to cover for a colleague for a few months while they would be out. I was just going to do a few appointments at the Memory Hub and then go back to my own world—but it was such a good fit that I am going to stay and work alongside my returning colleague. The Alzheimer's Association is now expanding the service at the Memory Hub, by doubling our appointment slots.
