Hummingbird Memory Cafe

05/21/2026

🎶 Arts-in-Medicine is Looking for Musicians 🎶
The Arts-in-Medicine Program is seeking professional musicians to join our team beginning this fall semester!
We are especially looking for musicians who play classical guitar, harp, or cello.

Our musicians play an important role in creating a healing environment at UNMH and the UNM Comprehensive Cancer Center, bringing moments of comfort, connection, and calm to patients, family members, and staff each day. 💙

If you are interested in this meaningful opportunity, please contact Program Coordinator Melissa Sandoval at [email protected] for more information.
Help us bring the healing power of music into healthcare spaces.

05/21/2026

05/21/2026

Are you working on an original project that touches on dementia? APPLY NOW!

05/17/2026

For Robert Espinoza, Founder and CEO of The CareWorks Project, the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City revealed something deeper than crisis—they exposed the hidden rules shaping who gets long-term care in America.

In his new essay, Robert introduces the Caregiving Divide™—six dimensions that determine access to care: ideas, systems, place, resources, power, and narrative.

In the United States, care is not distributed equally. It is shaped by geography, policy, and long-standing inequities that affect families, workers, and communities every day.

What would it take to build a care system that truly reflects dignity, fairness, and shared responsibility?

Read the full essay here: https://tinyurl.com/yttjtjra

05/15/2026

Jane was exhausted.

Every morning she watched her husband stand up too quickly, leave the walker behind, and start moving toward the bathroom alone. Every morning she reminded him. Every morning they argued. And every morning ended with the same fear sitting in her chest:
“What if this is the fall?”

One day she looked at me and said through tears,
“He’s becoming so stubborn.”

But he was not being stubborn.

His brain was losing the sequence.

There is a part of the brain responsible for organizing steps in order. Healthy brains do this automatically:
Pause.
Push up slowly.
Reach for the walker.
Find balance.
Then walk.

Dementia can quietly damage that sequencing system. The person still understands the goal, but the middle steps begin disappearing. The brain skips ahead. It rushes toward urgency. Toward the bathroom. Toward the ringing phone. Toward the doorbell.

And because the person may still speak clearly, joke normally, or appear “fine” in conversation, families often mistake this for defiance instead of neurological change.

But this is not a character flaw.

This is a changing brain trying to move through a world faster than it can process it.

That is why reminders alone often fail. Sticky notes fail. Arguments fail. Repeating “be careful” fails. Because you cannot remind someone into a sequence their brain can no longer reliably build.

So dementia care becomes less about demanding insight and more about redesigning the environment around the brain that exists today.

Place the walker directly in the path.
Add grab bars where they naturally reach.
Reduce clutter and urgency.
Use a bedside commode if rushing at night causes falls.
Make safety easier than remembering.

This is not “giving in.”
This is intelligent, compassionate adaptation.

And maybe one sentence can help families breathe differently tonight:

“He is not refusing to be careful.
His brain is losing the bridge between intention and action.”

caregiversupport

05/15/2026

Do you agree or disagree?

All we want is to be seen as a person, not just our disability.

People often assume the hardest part of living with a disability must be the physical pain, the mobility challenges, or the daily discomfort.

For many, the deepest pain comes from something else. It is the loneliness, the isolation, and the moments when we are overlooked, misunderstood, or treated as less-than human.

It is the quiet ache of watching others form bonds, build friendships, and make plans while we remain on the outside looking in. Not because we do not care and Not because we are not trying. It is because too often, people see our disability before they see us.

They assume our world is too different or too complicated. They step back, not out of cruelty, but out of uncertainty.

Many people simply do not know what to say or do when meeting those of us who navigate life differently. They worry about doing or saying the wrong thing and offending someone. They also do not want to look awkward so it is easier to just, avoid. For those raised with messages like “do not look, do not stare, do not ask,” silence can feel safer than connection.

Here’s is the truth. Most of us do not want your pity, we want connection. We want to laugh with friends, talk about everyday life, go on adventures, and try something new. We want to be included in moments that have nothing to do with our disability and everything to do with being human.

Having a disability does not mean we are not capable, it means we may do things differently. We might use tools or technology, or take a bit more time or space, but we are still learning, growing, and fully human.

So the next time you see us in the community, say “hello.” Ask how our day is, not only how our condition is.

Sometimes the most powerful healing does not come from medicine or therapy. It comes from knowing we truly belong.

“Having a disability does not change who we are, it changes our interactions with the world.”-Gina Martin
DiverseAbilities.ca

Photo description
Two girls around the age of9 are looking onward. They both are smiling and enjoying the moment. One of the girls uses a wheelchair to move around.
Text reads.
“The way we move does not define how we play. Inclusion means making space for all of us to join in.”

05/15/2026

05/14/2026

Love one another. ❤️

05/14/2026

In case you missed it: The Wayne County Airport Authority is partnering with
Unifi to introduce autonomous wheelchairs to the Evans Terminal at DTW!
Click this link to see how they work ➡️ https://youtu.be/HrzvBedTo6w