10 past 10

Klein, Hella Hella Klein was born in 1926 in Dusseldorf, Germany, where she attended a high school for home economics and child care. She took private piano, flute and guitar lessons - she wanted to become a music teacher. Hella Klein was trapped in a bomb shelter during an air raid in 1943 and her left hand was permanently injured, so that she had to give up her dream of studying music.Instead she concentrated on working with children, above all in homes for infants and children. In addition to her day job she attended evening classes to become a kindergarten teacher. In 1958, after marriage and the birth of her two children she started working with small groups of children, offering a group therapy setting in which individual children could receive special guidance. After 1965 Hella Klein worked as a kindergarten teacher at the University Clinic in Dusseldorf. In 1973 she earned a college degree by attending night school and in 1974 she received the state diploma for educators at the Ursuline College in Dusseldorf.Her training as a Montessori teacher was the decisive factor in her life from then on; her husband's dementia illness motivated her to find a way to use this method to help seniors and dementia sufferers.

10 past 10Montessori for Dementia PatientsA Book for Family, Friends and Caregivers"My husband was diagnosed with dementia seven years before he died. I was not familiar with the disease at the time, not with the initial symptoms, nor its course, nor its end. I made many mistakes. I could not understand his behaviour. This was not my husband, not the loving partner, friend and considerate comrade I had known. Making arrangements and planning our lives together was no longer possible."Hella Klein, Montessori teacher and now also Montessori therapist for seniors, found out all she could about this disease as quickly as possible in order to be able to first help her husband and subsequently many other victims of dementia, Alzheimer's or stroke improve their quality of life and find meaning in it.In her work with patients which she carries out on an honorary basis, she uses not only classic Montessori materials but also everyday objects and home-made materials. Hella Klein's sensitive and empathetic way of interacting with the seniors allows her to find new methods and ways to motivate them to undertake simple everyday activities, to speak or participate in games."In 1976, I received my Montessori diploma. Ever since then, I could work only according to the method of Dr. Maria Montessori: treating those I am caring for - children, seniors, the handicapped - with deep respect, love and patience; being there for them, playing and laughing together but also sharing sad times."