Interview with Lizette Cloete, OTR/L and a Dementia Educator

Interview with Lizette Cloete, OTR/L and a Dementia Educator

Lizette Cloete
OTR/L, CADDCT®, CDP® Skills2Care Certified
“Think Different” Dementia’s owner, graduated as an Occupational Therapist from the University of Pretoria in South Africa in 1992.

Lizette is the only Occupational Therapist in South Carolina that is certified in Skills2Care. Skills2Care is an evidence based and care-partner driven framework designed to teach care-partners how to recognize a resident’s unmet need and avoid triggering challenging dementia behaviors. Skills2Care has been shown to decrease the intensity and frequency of challenging behaviors by using a problem solving based approach. This approach helps to decrease staff burnout, staff turnover and improves the outcomes of residents with dementia.

Among her many accomplishments, she has served on the South Carolina Occupational Therapy Association’s Board of Directors from 2008-2014, where she held the offices of President, Past-President and Treasurer. She also served on the Board of Directors of the Parkinson’s Group of the Ozarks from 2003-2008 in a variety of roles.

Lizette is also a frequent guest speaker on dementia related topics at community colleges and universities. She has twice presented at the South Carolina Occupational Therapy Association’s annual conference on various dementia topics. The most recent one was February 2021 on the topic “Newer Research into Preventing Dementing”. She has also frequently presented at community events on multiple different topics over the past 30 years. She also presented at the South Carolina Assisted Living Associations’ fall conference in 2021. She was a contributor to the National Parkinson’s Foundations publication titled “Activities of Daily Living: Practical Pointers For Parkinson’s Disease”.

Currently, Lizette actively engages people with dementia and their care-partners in multiple online formats including Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn. She has a weekly podcast called “The Baffled Brain: Demystifying Dementia” where she answers dementia related questions on a live-stream podcast. Her private Facebook Group called “Think Different” Dementia Education Group has more than 500 members.

She has helped countless people all over the world with the management of challenging behaviors common to dementia, including South Africa, Kenya, Australia, The United Kingdom and even as far as Singapore and The Philippines.

She and her husband emigrated to the USA in 1993, and currently reside in South Carolina. They have 2 daughters and one son-in-love, 2 cats, one dog and 9 chickens.

Видео Interview with Lizette Cloete, OTR/L and a Dementia Educator канала Alternative Healthcare Careers