Dr. Virginia A. Wesson

Areas of Focus
Psychiatry

Dr. Virginia Wesson is a staff psychiatrist in geriatric psychiatry and her research is based in the Cyril & Dorothy, Joel & Jill Reitman Centre for Alzheimer’s Support and Training at Mount Sinai Hospital.

She holds an MSc and an MD from the University of Toronto.

She has been instrumental in the development, implementation and evaluation of interventions to improve caregivers’ capacity to care for family members with dementia. At the Reitman Centre she is part of a team delivering the Reitman Centre CARERS Program, an innovative group-based skills training program to family caregivers supporting their loved ones affected by dementia.

Current funding includes:
2015-2018: Co-Investigator. i-TRICE Program: Innovation and Training to Reduce Isolation in Caregivers and the Elderly. Employment and Social Development Canada. New Horizons for Seniors Program. PI: Sadavoy, Joel. Collaborators: Wesson, Virginia, Chiu, Mary, Nelles, LJ. $747,035 CAD.

2015-2018: Co-Investigator. ENRICHES Collaborative Management Project. Employment and Social Development Canada. New Horizons for Seniors Program. PI: Sadavoy, Joel. Collaborators: Wesson, Virginia, Chiu, Mary, Nelles, LJ. $556,575 CAD.

2014-2019: Co-Principal Investigator. The Canadian Consortium on Neurodegeneration in Aging. Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR). PI: Sadavoy, Joel. Collaborators: Duxbury, L, Higgins, C, Chiu, M, Wesson, V, Pushpakumar, D, Keefe, J, Lobchuk, M, Amant O, Tursunova, Z. $744,123 CAD.

Telephone
Contact [email protected]
416-586-4800 ext.6159
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Location

Mount Sinai Hospital
Sinai Health
L1-012 - 60 Murray St.
Toronto, Ontario
Canada
M5T 3L9

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Quick Links

Web of Science Researcher ID N-9244-2016

Publons ID 2212675

Publications

At a glance

Staff psychiatrist in geriatric psychiatry

Assistant Professor, Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto

Explores new ways of training, educating and supporting caregivers of people with dementia

Awarded the University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine Ivan Silver Award for Innovation in Continuing Professional Development, 2013

Major research activities

Dr. Wesson researches and provides training to professionals working in other institutions and community agencies so that they can deliver the caregiver interventions developed at the Reitman Centre. To date, the Reitman team has provided training to over 650 health care professionals. She also maintains a clinical practice providing individual and group therapy to older adults, especially family members of persons with dementia. Most recently, her research has been funded by grants from the federal government department of Human Resources and Skills Development Canada, The Change Foundation and the Law Commission of Ontario.