Meet Lena
Lena is an experienced Licensed Occupational Therapist (OT/L) who brings her advanced skillset, compassion, and caring holistic approach to every interaction. Mindfulness and building trusting therapeutic relationships through active listening and a tailored client-centered approach is important to her as she works with you. As an OT, Lena has worked for 20+ years in a multitude of healthcare settings from hospitals to home health and long term care facilities assisting clients regain function and independence with life skills and activities of daily living after injury, illness, and age-related impairments. She is a strong advocate for aging in place, striving to ensure that her clients are safe, functional, and as independent as possible in their homes. She is a highly qualified educator, advocate, facilitator, consultant, and coach for you and your loved ones as you navigate the aging process, the eldercare system, and the multitude of levels of care potentially required to support you and your loved ones along the journey. She has experience in working with all medical diagnoses, including neurological diseases such as stroke, brain injury, Parkinson’s disease, MS, seizure disorder, MCI, and dementia.
Lena graduated with a degree in Occupational Therapy from San Jose State University in 2002. In addition to being a facilitator of maximizing function, safety, and independence with life skills, she is also an experienced Community Educator, Dementia Care Specialist, and Driving Rehab Specialist. Furthermore, Lena is a Certified Montessori Practitioner for Eldercare, brining focus to supporting dignity, autonomy, and purposeful living by adapting environments and activities to match the individual’s current abilities.
Lena was born and raised in Norway, and she moved to the U.S. as a young adult. Her family still resides in Norway and she travels back frequently. She has developed broad perspectives regarding possibilities for a much more supportive and inclusive way of approaching aging and eldercare through her personal experience of caring for her own aging parents in Norway. She offers practical solution-oriented guidance emphasizing a framework of ‘doing with’ rather than ‘doing for’ her clients. Her intention is for you to walk away with broad perspectives and seeing creative solutions available to you as you make better informed decisions, having a multitude of new helpful strategies as you navigate the aging process and the elder care system.
How Lena will work with you
As an Occupational Therapist and Eldercare Coach & Consultant, Lena offers her services primarily in Nevada and Placer Counties in Northern California. This includes Nevada City, Grass Valley, Penn Valley and Auburn. She is ready to educate, support, and coach you and your loved ones as you navigate the complex world of aging and elder care. She offers a customized approach that is tailored to your specific needs and she invites you to partner with her as much or as little as you need.
Navigating the elder years, whether it is you or any of your loved ones who are aging, it may at times feel like a daunting time of life. You ask yourself: What are my options? How will I get through this? How will I find resources to support me? You just want to do the right thing. You deserve to be informed and feel supported through the process. The good news is that you don’t have to do it alone. Lena is ready to coach you through some of your most challenging situations. Without support, it may feel like an overwhelming and anxiety ridden time. You may be facing feelings of dread, confusion, worry, depression, anxiety, exhaustion, and isolation. It may be taking an emotional toll impacting your health, your relationships, and your overall quality of life. Imagine what could become possible if we turn towards each other rather than away from each other to combat these heavy feelings of isolation, separateness, and fear. As an experienced and compassionate OT and elder care coach, Lena believes that moving from surviving towards thriving is possible, even in the elder years. With the right conditions to thrive through guidance, education, and support, a sense of hope, resilience, trust, and safety returns. Lena’s intention is to assist you in gaining clarity and confidence, to know your options, to make informed decisions, and to take your power back as you navigate the complex world of elder care and aging while using her practical and reliable solution-oriented strategies.
Allow Lena to be part of your process; a trusted member of your healthcare team. Start conversations today and put plans in place before the aging process ends in a crisis for you and your loved ones. You don’t have to face these challenges alone, With her medical and holistic background, she helps you see the big picture of your situation and assists in breaking down your challenges into tangible action plans. She generates client-caregiver centered functional solutions in order for you to forge a path forward that is filled with more ease and peace for you and your entire family unit.
Let’s Talk
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From Clients
“When we started working with Lena, it felt like a breath of fresh air entered our lives. She offered us a safe place to land during a very stressful time for our family. Our father’s dementia had started to progress, and my parents’ wish was to live at home together for as long as possible. It had become increasingly difficult for our mom to safely care for our dad when we reached out to Lena for guidance. She helped us set up our parent’s home as safely as possible after identifying our dad’s need for grab bars and later a walker for balance. She educated us about strategies to keep our father actively engaged in activities every day and instructed us in fall prevention. Lena has been a consistent resource for our family, and we are very grateful for her skillful guidance.”
— John K. & Family 
“Lena has been incredibly helpful for our family. Her deep knowledge of Occupational Therapy allowed her to coach us with the most appropriate bed rails, where to put them on the bed, where to put grab bars and which ones would work best in our situation, how to deal with stair safety and, just in general, how to allow us to live out our lives in our own home. Lena also supported my husband in her home visits, working with us on activities such as maintaining vocabulary, organizing calendars and coaching me in ways to best help my husband. If you want to maintain your life at your home and to safely age in place as long as you can, I highly recommend Lena as your Eldercare coach and counselor. You'll be very happy that you did!”
— Susan C.