Team Spotlight: The West 5th Seniors Mental Health Rehabilitation Team
The Seniors Mental Health Rehabilitation team at St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton is a close-knit team. So close in fact, that when approached about being featured for Asian Heritage Month, their response was: “if one of us does something, we’re all doing it.”
The team works out of the West 5th Campus and is comprised of Amanda Buonocore (Occupational Therapy Assistant/Physiotherapy Assistant), Collin Chau (Physiotherapist) and Melody Yan (Occupational Therapist) who support the overall physical and cognitive wellbeing of older adults in the Seniors Mental Health program.
Left to right: Melody Yan, Collin Chau, Amanda Buonocore
While they each have unique cultural backgrounds with Amanda’s parents immigrating from the Philippines in the 80s, Collin’s from South Vietnam in the 90s, and Melody immigrating to Canada from mainland China in 2000, the team's shared values about the importance of family drive their passion for providing care to seniors and supporting their families.
“My grandmother lives alone in China, and while family is important in our culture, there’s a lot of stigma against mental health and elder care,” Melody says. “To be able to work in geriatrics and provide support to families so that their loved ones can be cared for is a great privilege, and something that I wish I could offer to my grandmother. That’s why I chose to work in geriatrics.”
“In my background, my parents took on the role of caring for their parents as they aged, so when my parents get to that age, I also want to take care of them,” Amanda adds.
In this way, the team can relate to the families of their patients. “We understand where they’re coming from,” says Collin. “Family is such a big aspect in Asian cultures, so it makes it easier for us to be empathetic and see why they’re so involved in their parents' care.”
Through their interdisciplinary approach to care, Amanda, Collin and Melody work closely together to support their patients’ strength, mobility, and ability to function. “In general, physiotherapy is concerned with getting you from point A to point B,” Collin explains. “Then occupational therapy will help you do things once you get to your destination like dressing, cooking, counting money, taking your medications, that kind of stuff.”
"We do our initial assessments together to see how people walk and what kind of equipment they might need to keep them safe while they're mobilizing,” says Melody. “While they're walking, I also sprinkle in questions about what their home looks like to get some more of that background information for my home and kitchen assessments later on in their admission.”
Following Collin and Melody’s assessments they assign treatment plans to Amanda to carry on with patients. “We’re so lucky to have Amanda,” Collin and Melody say.
When asked what the best part about each of their jobs is, the team’s response was unanimous: one another.
“We’re quite lucky that all three of us get along so well and found each other here at St. Joe’s,” Collin says. “On the days that are tough, it helps to know that you have people in your corner.”
“We’re all really close even outside of work, so working together just comes naturally,” adds Amanda. “We’re always one step ahead of each other without even having to ask, you can just communicate with eye contact and it’s like ‘yeah, I got you.’”