Outreach

Faith Community Nurse Network and Lyngblomsten
Community Services collaborated to bring you this
session where attendees will learn from experts in
spiritualty and dementia regarding their work and
research (theological practice and lived experience)
with people living with dementia in a neuropalliative
setting and their caregivers. Presenters:
Rev. Kelly Spahr, M.Div., AC-Clinical Bioethics, BCC
Chaplain, Neurology Supportive & Palliative Care Service
Judy Long, Palliative Care Chaplain
University of California – San Franciso’s Symptom Management Service and UCSF’s Parkinson’s Disease Supportive Care Clinic.

Rev. Judy Long is an ordained minister and Board-Certified Chaplain. She served as outpatient chaplain in grant-funded neuropalliative care clinics for people living with advanced Parkinson’s Disease and Related Disorders (PDRD) as well as with Alzheimer’s Disease (AD). She developed and teaches a course in sustainable caregiving (emotional resilience) for caregivers of those living with neurologic illnesses and other serious illnesses. She also adapted it and taught it as resilience for patients including for those with neurologic illnesses and dementias. MERI Center for Education in Palliative Care, UCSF Division of Palliative Medicine. On a personal note, she is also the caregiver for her husband who lives with Alzheimer’s disease.

Rev. Kelly Spahr is an ordained minister and a Board-Certified Chaplain, serving in the Rochester, N.Y. Area since 2012. She is an outpatient chaplain at the University of Rochester Medical Center Neuropalliative and ALS Clinics, and a co-facilitator in the Palliative Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy clinic. She also serves on the Crossroads of Caring Clinical Pastoral Education Professional Advisory Board, and on the URMC Ethics Committee.

Both have worked with Dr. Benzi Kluger,  Professor of Neurology and Medicine, founding director of the Palliative Care Research center and Neuropalliative Care Service at the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York.