HeyVelma

HeyVelma We believe everyone deserves dignity, safety, and autonomy.

Our mission is to support those living with dementia and their families with tools that make everyday life easier and safer.

08/25/2026

There’s a difference between keeping mom busy and keeping her brain engaged.

Research keeps coming back to five areas:
- Emotion: practicing regulation blunts the body’s cortisol response
- Creativity : links the brain’s imagining and focusing networks
- New learning: unfamiliar, effortful skills build cognitive reserve
- Motivation: following through recalibrates the brain’s effort math
- Recall: pulling a memory out strengthens it far more than reviewing it

None of it needs an app, an appointment, or a good day. It needs regular, frequent practice, a little at a time.

That’s what calls in the HeyVelma program are for. 🔗 in bio.

brainexercises

08/13/2026

There’s a treatment for dementia that isn’t a drug. The UK tells its doctors to offer it to every patient who could use it. Most American families have never been told it exists.

It’s called cognitive stimulation therapy. Structured sessions that work memory, language, problem-solving and recall, the way physical therapy works a body back after an injury. Of all the non-drug approaches to
dementia symptoms, it’s the only one clinical guidelines recommend.

The reason families never get it: it’s built to run in person, in a group, at a specialty clinic, on a weekday afternoon. If your mom doesn’t drive anymore and you have a job and aren’t close to the few clinics that offer it, that’s where it ends for most people.

We deliver the whole program over the phone instead. If your parent can pick up a landline, they can do this. Nothing to download, no tablet to learn, no one has to be good with technology. The sessions come to them, on their schedule, in their own home.

Start with a quick questionnaire. Five minutes, and you’ll know where your parent is and what could help. Then a care manager gets on the phone with you, free, and walks you through what the results mean and what helps at home. You’ll get resources you can use that week, plus free sessions every month.

If you want the full program, it’s $99 your first month: a dedicated care manager who knows your parent, and one to three sessions a day built around their memory, mood, confidence, and daily routines.

Send this to someone who should hear about it!

Link in bio.


08/03/2026

Someone offered to help last month and you said you had it. You did have it. You still answered too fast.

At some point, the amount of caregiving you do became confused with how much you love your mom or dad. You know those aren’t the same thing, but it hasn’t changed what you do.

When it felt overwhelming, you hinted to your siblings that you could use help with appointments. You’re not blaming them. Change is hard, so everything stayed the same.

It’s hard to ask sometimes, because you don’t want to feel like a burden to others. It’s also hard because you don’t want to feel like you’re “handing off” care. But this was never a one-person job, and asking doesn’t mean anything except that you have a lot on your plate. You love them just the same.

Your well being matters too. So this is your sign to ask for help, and be specific when you do. “Can you help with Tuesday appointments?” is a question someone can say yes to.

Send this to the person you’ve been meaning to ask. It counts as asking.

07/29/2026

You’ve spent way too much time trying to understand memory loss. And the hardest part isn’t the reading, it’s not knowing what you’re even supposed to be looking for

You might have been told there’s not much you can do. The research says otherwise. Cognitive stimulation is the strongest non-drug evidence we have, and in trials it holds up against the leading medications

You’ve felt all of this already. Now it has receipts

Send this to someone who needs to see it 👀

07/28/2026

A few spotlights on the people behind HeyVelma

We’ll be sharing a few intros and snippets behind the scenes for a peek at who we are and why we do this work

Nobody on this team ended up here by accident. We all chose it, because we care deeply about the families we walk alongside. So if it feels like you’re doing this alone right now, we’re here, and we’ll take care of your family like they’re our own

07/03/2026

The glow-up nobody’s talking about? Confidence 🫶

JJ, our head of care, sees it play out in the families she works with every day: the first thing that shifts isn’t cognition, it’s confidence. And once that clicks, everything else follows.

JJ brings a master’s in public health, certification from the National Board for Health and Wellness Coaching, and over a decade of experience in aging, cognitive health, and holistic wellbeing to every family she supports.

Turns out “just feeling a little more sure of yourself” does a lot more heavy lifting for your brain than we give it credit for. Science says feeling better literally helps your brain function better in other areas too.

👇Tag someone who needs the reminder that progress isn’t always loud. Sometimes it’s just someone finally feeling like themselves again.

HealthyAging

07/02/2026

Dave was part of the team that built Unreal Engine at Epic Games, the technology behind Gears of War and still one of the most-used game engines in the world. He later co-created Osmos, an Apple Design Award-winning game played by millions worldwide. It even showed up on an episode of The Simpsons.

Since then, he’s spent his career fighting for the user. He protected people’s privacy at TunnelBear. He co-founded Waverly to give people real control over their own social feeds, and he built Numeno to prove you could personalize someone’s experience without ever needing to collect their data.

Everything he’s built has been about making technology feel human, safe, and worth trusting, at the highest caliber. That’s the same energy (and the same heart) he brings to Velma every day, matching the compassion the rest of our team brings to every single family we serve. Our families deserve nothing less, and Dave treats that trust like it matters. Because it does.

06/30/2026

Something I’ve been wanting to do for a while: build this company out in the open. More coming soon! 🧡

“Last week, Mom was venting about an old boyfriend: ‘He had bad breath and was dumb as a doornail. His breath might’ve b...
06/29/2026

“Last week, Mom was venting about an old boyfriend: ‘He had bad breath and was dumb as a doornail. His breath might’ve been the smartest thing about him.’

That’s her sparkle. It didn’t disappear with her diagnosis. It just needed care that knew how to bring it back. The right care doesn’t just keep her safe. It keeps her brain active enough to find these moments again.”

06/26/2026

You can’t be the caregiver and their daughter or son at the same time, not really.

Kunal Parikh, who helped build out Velma’s early community work, has researched this tension professionally: a Master’s in Aging and Health from Queen’s University, an award-winning study on caregiver burnout, and a TEDx talk called “Did You Know You Are A Caregiver?” on how the role quietly swallows the relationship.

His point: every hour spent managing their care (appointments, meds, repeated questions, frustration) is an hour of missed quality time.

Caregiving crept in. But underneath it all, you’re still you to them, and that’s who you should get to be.

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277 Cadman Plz E
New York, NY
11201

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