The COPE Program
Dementia Coaching Sessions
A Better Quality of Life
at Home With Dementia
Contact us to discuss your unique situation
and determine how COPE can make life at home easier
for you and your loved one.
Live Joyfully With Dementia
Despite the difficulties that a dementia diagnosis can bring, it is still possible to live a life filled with hope and joy. COPE Dementia Coaching sessions are the first of their kind in Arizona, offering families and care partners professional dementia training tailored to your specific situation and home environment.
Our medical team will assess key challenges you’re experiencing in your home, and work with you to determine goals that make life easier for yourself and your loved one living with dementia. You’ll learn effective communication techniques, what’s causing your loved one to respond in a certain manner, how to redirect expressions, and manage care partner distress and burnout.
After your participation in the COPE Program, you’ll have the tools, strategies, and information to make life easier for you, and your loved one living with dementia.
Living at home with Alzheimer’s or other dementia?
Learn practical strategies to overcome:
Anxiety/Fear • Arguing • Bathing Challenges • Exit Seeking or Wandering • Boredeom • Repeating •
Misunderstanding of Dementia • Care Partner Overwhelm or Burnout •
Determine eligibility with a free consultation.
Call us today at (480) 625-3867
Our Approach
After a dementia diagnosis, it’s common to experience challenges impacting everyone in the home. However, these challenges are often manageable with a better understanding of their underlying triggers.
Clinically customized sessions take place in the comfort of your own home, to assess your unique situation and provide you with tools and evidence-based solutions to enhance quality-of-life for you and your loved one. A COPE* Certified Occupational Therapist and team will utilize a hands-on approach to empower you with simple changes you can make to overcome obstacles, giving you the ability and confidence to manage the complexities of dementia care at home and enjoy a life filled with hope, purpose, laughter, and JOY!
- We’ll visit your home to meet with you and your loved one living with dementia to determine the needs, abilities, strengths, and challenges that you’re experiencing. An Occupational Therapist will complete a comprehensive assessment to develop goals to focus on in the sessions ahead.
- Our clinicians will review medical concerns, medications, and tests to rule out other potential underlying conditions that can contribute to care challenges.
- After reviewing your specific situation and identifying your needs and goals, your COPE team will develop a plan of care that addresses the unique challenges identified by your family. An Occupational Therapist will visit your home for up to ten (60-min) sessions to initiate problem solving, review skills learned, answer questions, and/or role play to address new challenges.
Call us at (480) 625-3867 for a free consultation and to determine eligibility.
The Research
We integrate the evidence-based principles of the COPE* Program – developed by one of the world’s leading dementia researchers, Dr. Laura Gitlin, and OT, Catherine Piersol.
The Dementia Hub by Oakwood Creative Care is the first organization in Arizona to offer this program to people with dementia, their care partners, and their families.
Learn more about the COPE model, in this video located on Drexel’s website.
Meet the Team
Monika "Mo" Lukasiewicz
Monika “Mo” Lukasiewicz, OTR/L, serves as the COPE Program Director and has the pleasure of being the first occupational therapist to work on the Oakwood Creative
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Care (OCC) team. After OCC was awarded a federal grant from the Administration for Community Living in 2021 focused on the Alzheimer’s Disease Program Initiatives, Mo was hired to learn and implement a clinical, immersive and evidence-base program (called the COPE Program) in order to begin serving care partners and people living with dementia AT HOME. The COPE Program was co-developed a world leader in dementia care research, Dr. Laura Gitlin, and a leading occupational therapist in evidence-based programs including Skills2care, Dr. Catherine Piersol. Training for this program happens thru Drexel University.
As of February 2024, the new Dementia Hub is officially home to Oakwood and Arizona’s first therapy clinic dedicated to evidence-based dementia care. The current clinical offerings include interdisciplinary COPE-based services led by a COPE trained occupational therapist with collaboration from a COPE trained nurse practitioner.
Monika graduated with her master’s in occupational therapy from the College of St. Mary in Omaha, NE in 2009. With over 20,000 patient encounters (including at least 6,000 home visits) in 15 years of home-based, outpatient, ICU, acute care, and acute rehab healthcare, she loves problem solving to enhance quality of life and prevent hospitalizations. As a result she loves identifying and aligning do-it-today solutions to match some of healthcare and families most unique challenges.
During her nearly 15 years of practice as an OT, she has a few fun highlights: studied lifestyle advising at USC, motivational interviewing, wrote the first e-book for home health occupational therapists, wrote blogs, created a podcast called “Home Health Occupational Therapy Explorer” to help carry the home-based work of OT into a deeper quality of clinical awareness, was interviewed on leading OT podcasts such as OT Potential and Seniors Flourish, was adjunct professor at College of St. Mary, Midwestern University, guest lecturer at Methodist College, Huntington University, AT Still University, and Gateway Community College. Collaborates and is improving overall healthcare access locally with leading innovators such as the Mesa Dementia Friendly Task Force, AZ Caregiver Coalition (Respite Network), Crisis Prevention Institute, AZ Department of Economic Security, AskSAMIE, and Rosarium. She is part of the planning committee of Arizona’s first AZ Caregiver Summitt, has advocated to help establish a “Dementia Track” at the local yearly ArizOTA State Conference and is collaborating to present at the 2024 National Down Syndrome Conference on adaptations for living with dementia from an occupational therapy lens. Mo is also certified in Skills2care and the COPE Program as well as being available as a COPE master trainer.
Her purpose is to inspire her community through a poetic understanding and use of occupational therapy. Her favorite form of stress management is quality conversation sprinkled with humor, doing yoga, hiking and/or being outdoors on an adventure with people she loves.
Riley Hooks
Riley is a physician assistant “PA” who has over 40,000 patient encounters in 8 years of primary, urgent care, and housecall medicine. He fell in love with housecall medicine about 5 years ago
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and continues to provide primary, urgent, geriatric, and pediatric care in home. His goal is to obtain a full picture of his patients, accounting for their living situation, caregiver/family dynamics, and hobbies and interests. Riley has a substantial background in working with and managing dementia care, and is excited to be a part of the COPE program.
Amanda Jones
Doctor of Nursing Practice Amanda Jones, DNP, MSN-Ed, FNP-C is a doctorally prepared family nurse practitioner who has studied care across the lifespan. She earned a Bachelor
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of University Studies from Oklahoma State University with concentrations in Architecture, Leisure Service Management, and Marketing. She then earned an associate degree in Nursing from Central Texas College, a Master’s in Nursing Education from Grand Canyon University, a Doctorate of Nursing Practice from Grand Canyon University, and a Post Master’s Certificate Family Nurse Practitioner from Grand Canyon University.
Dr. Jones’ (DNP) clinical experience includes service in the Veteran’s Healthcare Administration hospital system, Buffalo NY Children’s Hospital Neonatal ICU, Various settings of Adult Intensive Care, Medical Surgical Nursing, Emergency Department, Women’s Health Nursing, and hospital leadership. As a former Chief Nursing Officer in the Dallas, Fort Worth area, Amanda served three hospitals, overseeing operations for all departments, including imaging, physical and occupational therapy, respiratory therapy, building grounds, and direct nursing supervision. Dr. Jones (DNP) then accepted a role at Grand Canyon University as a full-time faculty and eventually led the Doctor of Nursing Practice program. Currently, she owns a private concierge medicine practice specializing in care across the lifespan and serves as the Assistant Dean at a university out of California, where she oversees operations in all Nursing Baccalaureate, Master’s, and Doctoral programs. She remains an adjunct faculty at Grand Canyon University.
Clinically, Dr. Jones (DNP) focuses on quality of life and health optimization in her patient population, and her practice specializes in non-judgmental, patient-centered concierge care. In the past, she presented at the University of Wisconsin-Madison on the topic of serving Veterans in the online platform and was also published as one of the chapter authors in a Handbook of Research on Creating Meaningful Experiences in Online Courses. Recently, she was a featured speaker at United States University’s Biannual Research Colloquium presenting on the topic: Leveraging Communication and Policy Adherence for Professionals and Organizations. Her scholarly work has a common focus on the integration of care and compassion in patient relationships regardless of the role or vantage point. This was inspired by her work with various populations and her original Doctoral Project: The role of relationships as perceived by the nurse in critical care and non-critical care environments.
Amanda resides in Mesa, AZ, with her family, including daughter Leah and son Asher. She enjoys travel, reading, and all things sports, especially GCU basketball. She has a great love for Oakwood’s mission and has enjoyed her service on the board of directors.
Megan Schapiro
Megan is a COPE-trained Occupational Therapist and a graduate from the Huntington University Doctoral program in Occupational Therapy. Megan is a member of ArizOTA, AOTA, and the Dementia
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Collaborative’s Dementia Squad. She began her career in occupational therapy with an emphasis on brain and spine injuries and, through her years of schooling and student experiences, she found a true passion for neurological diseases and disorders in the adult population.
Megan spent her capstone research months developing a Parkinson’s disease support group and resource guide where she also enjoyed working with clients with dementia. Megan is certified in the C.O.P.E Program, developed by Dr. Laura Gitlin and Cathy Piersol, and the Skills2Care program. She aims to deliver trail-blazing, evidence-based, progressive occupational therapy services, addressing dementia in the home and caregiver support. Megan’s goal is to ensure that families dealing with dementia feel supported and understood and to offer them the tools and strategies they need to improve and maintain a good quality of life.
Her hobbies include gardening, being outdoors, listening to music and podcasts, and being with family. Something profound that she has learned while working in dementia care is that as humans, we are all just looking to connect with someone. At the heart of the work that we do is a feeling of connectedness and support.
Enhance quality of life for yourself and your loved one
Support families navigating dementia at home
Reduce stress levels for the care partner & family
Build confidence to redirect challenging behaviors
Increase involvement in daily care
Home safety modifications to your specific needs
Care Partner Support At The Dementia Hub
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Oakwood Creative Care is the first location in Arizona offering the COPE Program. This project was supported, in part by grant number 90ADPI0083, from the U.S. Administration for Community Living, DHHS, Washington, D.C. 20201