ABOUT AMY SHAW, PA-C
The clinician who teaches you why.
Amy Shaw, PA-C is a dementia clinician, consultant, and educator—and the creator of Better Dementia®. She helps family and professional caregivers understand why dementia drives behavior, so caregiving becomes more intuitive.
WHY, NOT JUST WHAT
Most dementia education teaches you what to do. Better Dementia® teaches you why it happens.
Amy Shaw, PA-C is a physician assistant and practicing dementia clinician who has spent nearly a decade caring for people living with dementia and the families who love them. She is the creator of Better Dementia®—the model, and its staged Better Dementia® Journey Framework—a published author, and a dementia consultant and trainer whose work now reaches family caregivers and professional care teams nationwide.
Her whole approach rests on one idea: the brain never stops trying to do its job. When you understand that, dementia behavior stops looking random—and caregiving starts to make sense.
THE ORIGIN STORY
Why I built Better Dementia®.
For nearly a decade, I've walked alongside families through every stage of dementia—from the earliest signs that something has changed, through the hardest seasons of the journey. I've sat with the daughter who can't understand why her mother has turned on her, and the husband who is losing his wife one ordinary afternoon at a time.
What I saw, over and over, is that the families who struggled most were not the ones who loved less. They were the ones who understood less—not because they hadn't tried, but because no one had ever explained what dementia was actually doing to the brain in a way that was clear, complete, and usable.
They were handed lists of tips. Redirect. Don't argue. Stay calm. Good advice, but disconnected—a hundred separate rules to memorize with no thread running through them. So the moment a new behavior appeared that wasn't on the list, they were lost again.
"The problem was never a lack of love. It was a gap in understanding."
I became convinced that caregivers didn't need more tips. They needed a way of understanding the brain—one framework that made every behavior legible, so they could reason their way through moments no list could anticipate.
So I built one. Better Dementia® is that framework: not another collection of caregiving hacks, but a way of understanding why the brain behaves the way it does, so behavior finally makes sense and caregiving becomes more intuitive. That single idea now runs through everything I create—the book, the Academy, the consultations I offer families, and the training I bring to care organizations.
THE IDEA AT THE CENTER OF IT ALL
The heart of Better Dementia®.
The brain never stops trying to do its job.
Dementia changes what the brain is capable of doing, but not its fundamental purpose. Once you understand how it keeps making sense of the world, you stop seeing someone being difficult—and start seeing a brain still working with the abilities it has left.
That single shift in understanding changes everything—and it's where the model begins. From there, the Better Dementia® Journey Framework maps the stages of the journey ahead.
CREDENTIALS & PUBLICATIONS
Clinical authority, put in plain language.
Amy's work is grounded in real clinical practice and published, peer-reviewed writing—then translated into language any caregiver can use.
Practicing Clinician
Certified physician assistant (PA-C) and practicing dementia clinician with nearly a decade caring for people living with dementia and their families.
Published Author, 2025
The Arc of Conversation: A How-To Guide for Goals of Care Conversations (Springer, 2025)—a clinician's guide to the hardest conversations in care.
Forthcoming, 2027
Better Dementia: A Roadmap for the Caregiver's Journey (Publishing, 2027)—the book that introduces the Better Dementia® Journey Framework to caregivers everywhere.
Reach to date: 700+ families supported nationwide.
WHY I DO THIS WORK
Caregivers do better when they understand the what, when, and why of dementia — so they can master the how of caregiving.
Dementia is not random. It follows patterns. When those patterns are understood, caregiving becomes more predictable, more skillful, and less frightening.
FEATURED IN
Recognized where clinicians and caregivers look.
WHAT I BELIEVE
The convictions behind Better Dementia®.
Understanding beats memorizing.
You don't need a hundred disconnected tips. You need one way of understanding the brain that makes behavior legible.
Behavior is communication.
What looks like stubbornness or confusion is a brain still trying to make sense of the world with the abilities it has left.
Struggle is not a failure of love.
Families who struggle most don't love less—they were simply never given a clear explanation of what dementia does.
Clarity is a form of compassion.
Clear, honest, usable knowledge is one of the kindest things you can give an exhausted caregiver.
Dignity, always.
The person is still there. The goal is never to manage them, but to meet them where their brain actually is.
Caregivers deserve a roadmap.
No one should have to navigate dementia by guesswork. Everyone deserves to know where they are and what comes next.
WORK WITH AMY
Two ways I help, one shared framework.
Whether you're a family in a hard moment or an organization caring for many, the work begins the same way—by understanding the brain.
Dementia consultation for families
Private, one-on-one guidance for families facing complex dementia challenges—tailored to your loved one and your circumstances. Available nationwide, private pay.
Professional dementia training
Evidence-informed training for memory care, home care, and healthcare organizations—so your whole team shares one framework and cares with consistency and confidence.
COMMON QUESTIONS
About Amy Shaw & Better Dementia®.
Amy Shaw, PA-C is a physician assistant, dementia clinician, consultant, and educator, and the creator of Better Dementia®. She has spent nearly a decade caring for people living with dementia and the families who love them, and now teaches family and professional caregivers why dementia drives behavior so that caregiving becomes more intuitive.
Yes. Amy offers private, one-on-one dementia consultation for families facing complex situations, tailored to their loved one and their circumstances. Consultations are available nationwide and are private pay. Families can schedule directly through her Calendly.
Yes. Amy provides professional dementia training for memory care, home care, and healthcare organizations. Her training gives care teams a shared framework for understanding dementia behavior so they can respond with consistency and confidence.
Better Dementia® is Amy Shaw's model for understanding dementia. Instead of teaching caregivers only what to do, it teaches why behavior happens: the brain never stops doing its job, even as dementia changes its abilities. When caregivers understand the brain, behavior begins to make sense and caregiving becomes more intuitive.
The Better Dementia® Journey Framework is the staging system inside the Better Dementia® model. It maps the predictable, staged progression of the dementia journey so caregivers know where they are and what comes next. The Better Dementia® Journey Framework is the roadmap taught in Amy's book, Better Dementia: A Roadmap for the Caregiver's Journey, and in the Better Dementia® Academy.
Amy Shaw is the author of The Arc of Conversation: A How-To Guide for Goals of Care Conversations (Springer, 2025) and the forthcoming Better Dementia: A Roadmap for the Caregiver's Journey (Bloomsbury, 2027).
Amy provides dementia caregiver education, consultation, and professional training nationwide. In-person medical care is available in Laramie County, Wyoming, and telehealth medical care throughout Wyoming. Amy Shaw LLC is private pay only and does not bill Medicare, Medicaid, Tricare, or commercial insurance.
Better Dementia™: A National Platform for Caregiver Support
Amy founded Better Dementia™ to make clinically grounded, expert-level dementia education accessible to families everywhere.
Better Dementia™ brings together education, guidance, and support designed to help caregivers understand what is happening in the brain, anticipate changes over time, and respond with skill and dignity.
The work includes:
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Personalized dementia consulting for families nationwide
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A self-paced digital learning experience for caregivers who want to build understanding at their own pace
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Clear teaching on dementia stages, behavior, communication, and psychiatric symptoms
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Practical resources that help families caregive with competence, clarity, and calm
Better Dementia is designed to meet caregivers where they are — whether they are just beginning to seek understanding or navigating complex decisions later in the journey.
