Christiana Egi is always busy. As a Registered Nurse, Diabetes Educator, Registered Natural Health Nutritionist, Geriatric and Mental Health Specialist, mother, and grandmother, she is always trying to help inform and support others.

In her free time, she co-hosts the biweekly Podcast, Forever Young with Cherrie-Marie Chiu (ALS Double Play) that tackles issues of mental and physical wellness.

Egi spent 10 years of her 34-year nursing career working in the crisis unit of Canada’s largest psychiatric hospital. For the last 22 years, she has owned and operated Alexis Lodge Retirement Facilities in Toronto, Canada, a business she started with her late husband, Anthony. Their mission is to impact the lives individuals with Alzheimer’s disease and other types of dementia with a focus on providing person-centered care, putting the individuals first and giving them a place to call home. Alexis Lodges are non-institutional home-like facilities where the residents are treated with love, respect and dignity, when they can no longer be cared for by their loved ones at home.

The cornerstone of Alexis Lodge is the home-like environment that involves co-horting residents into small family-like groups. This method of supporting people with dementia is formally known as the green-house model and it has been proven to provide the optimal environment for people with progressing dementias.

Dementia has the ability to put stress on families, especially when a loved one reaches the point where the need to move into a facility, but in her many years of experience, Egi has seen firsthand how creating a supportive and flexible environment can help people with dementia and their families. Her work and innovative approaches to supporting people with dementia and their families has been featured in the Toronto Star as well as CTV News and other media outlets.