Our Winners
Congratulations!
We’re excited to announce 2024 Maude’s Ventures winner, Tranquility Health!
A leader in elder dental care and community-focused dentistry with extensive experience treating patients with Alzheimer’s Disease and other forms of dementia, Dr. Amaro and Tranquility Health’s affiliated doctors are dedicated to providing care to the most dentally underserved population in the US – older adults with cognitive impairments.
Tranquility Health manages onsite dental care for residents of senior living communities, addressing a critical gap in access to high-quality care.
Dr. Amanda Amaro
CEO and Founder, Tranquility Health
Dr. Amaro obtained her Doctor of Dental Surgery degree (DDS) from the world’s first dental college, The University of Maryland School of Dentistry. Dr. Amaro offers high quality dentistry to residents of senior care facilities, a patient population that is often neglected. Dr. Amaro is a Certified Dementia Practitioner and experienced in handling patients with Alzheimer’s Disease, Parkinson’s Disease, and all forms of Dementia.
The Maryland State Dental Association recognized Dr. Amaro’s commitment to elder dental care in 2019 when she received the MSDA Foundation Scholarship for leadership in community-minded dentistry.
Dr. Amaro is a member of the American Dental Association, Academy of General Dentistry, Gorgas Odontological Honorary Society, Gamma Pi Delta National Prosthodontic Honor Society, and Omricon Kappa Upsilon National Dental Honor Society (membership reserved for the top 12% of the graduating dental class).
Memory Cafe Alliance
Maude’s Ventures has proudly invested in Memory Cafe Alliance. Memory Cafe Alliance is an alliance committed to the dramatic and sustainable expansion of Memory Cafes in the United States to enhance meaningful connection, joy, and purpose among people living with dementia and their care partners.
For more information, contact expandmemorycafes@gmail.com.
Memory Cafés show the world how to live well with dementia.
Anne Basting
Professor, University Wisconsin – Milwaukee
Anne has 25 years of experience in the field of aging and dementia. She is an artist, author of four books and several articles, and a professor. Anne has had experience managing large-scale projects, and is the founder and Board President of Timeslips Creative Storytelling.
Susan McFadden
Co-Founder, Fox Valley Memory Project
Susan McFadden is a retired psychology professor (Professor Emerita) at UW Oshkosh. She is still active in dementia research and co-founded the Fox Valley Memory Project to help people with dementia. She has a long history of studying aging and psychology, with a focus on religion and spirituality. In her retirement, she enjoys hobbies like drumming, spending time in nature with her husband, and being with her family.
Beth Soltzberg
Director, Alzheimer’s/Related Disorders Family Support Program, JF&CS
Beth Soltzberg is a social worker who has devoted her entire career to prioritizing personality and joy in the process of aging. Currently, she directs the Alzheimer’s/Related Disorders Family Support Program at Jewish Family & Children’s Service (JF&CS) in Waltham, Massachusetts. In March of 2014, Beth launched the first intergenerational memory café in Massachusetts, and JF&CS has held a memory café every month since.
Lorenzo’s House.
Maude’s Ventures proudly made the founding investment in Lorenzo’s House. Lorenzo’s House is a new nonprofit with the mission of empowering family care partners and their loved ones by addressing the social and clinical needs of families living with younger-onset Alzheimer’s.
Lorenzo’s House provides resources and hope for families facing young-onset dementia.
Diana Shulla-Cose
Founding Executive Director, Lorenzo’s House
After her husband was diagnosed with younger-onset Alzheimer’s, Diana quickly learned about the care gap in the memory care space and decided to make meaning of this dark and isolating diagnosis by creating a place that builds community, delivers on innovation and brings light.
Ella, by TapRoot
Maude’s Ventures was excited to invest in TapRoot. TapRoot’s digital assistant, Ella, mitigates adverse behaviors in Alzheimer’s and dementia, promoting aging-in-place while supporting continuity from family care to long-term care and other care options.
This application also provides short training videos for caregivers so they are always armed with the best caregiving knowledge.
With Ella, caregivers have access to instant dementia guidance, wherever they are.
Scarlett Spring
Co-Founder/Chief Executive Officer, TapRoot Interventions & Solutions, Inc.
Personally impacted by dementia, Scarlett watched a great-grandmother, grandmother, uncle, and aunt develop dementia and become unable to communicate or recognize loved ones. Finding caregivers that understood the disease was challenging. Yet, after witnessing Linda’s approach to personalizing care using information from family members and seeking to understand the drivers of dementia-related behavioral reactions, Scarlett knew they had to develop her approach and scale it. The result is TapRoot, where their approach is to tap into one’s long-term memory increasing the likelihood of a successful intervention.
Linda Buscemi
Chief Clinical Officer/Co-Founder, TapRoot Interventions & Solutions, Inc.
Co-founder and behaviorist Linda Buscemi, PhD, has worked with skilled nursing and assisted living communities for 12 years training staff and writing behavioral plans, which she calls approach plans, providing personalized interventions to aid caregivers to better mitigate behavioral expressions in persons with cognitive deficits. Her vast experience, passion and belief that behaviors stem from a stimulus and finding each person’s reason for that reaction has made her the perfect person to help in the creation of TapRoot’s digital assistant, Ella.