Hi, I’m Dr Nathalie Huitema
Registered sexologist in the USA and trained as a psychologist in the Netherlands, I’ve been working in nursing homes and assisted living facilities for over 25 years. In these environments, nursing staff frequently share their uncomfortable experiences with residents’ sexual behavior and expression.
Awkward situations vary can from:
- Helping a client in the shower who expresses sexual excitement.
- Entering a room in the midst of solo sexual activity.
- Walking in on sexual activity between residents with cognitive impairment.
- Residents holding hands or expressing intimacy in common spaces.
- Residents who touch or grab nursing staff in inappropriate ways.
Typically, nursing staff have no idea what to do during these moments, being taken off guard and uncertain about how to deal with the situation (and how to process their own experience).
I help care teams handle these situations respectfully, confidently, and with skilled knowledge. In addition, I support care organizations to create or amend guidelines that best support staff and residents.
Throughout my career, I have focused on developing sexuality training for staff, family, residents, and medical doctors who work in senior care. As an avid advocate for the sexual well-being of seniors, I give media interviews, appear on podcasts, and offer presentations for ombudspersons and administrators.
Included in this work, I am committed to preventing problematic sexual situations from arising for staff and the care facility. In doing so, I engage my time and energy in supporting care facilities to develop focused guidelines and specialized training for their staff. This way, any organization and its professional teams can feel confident in handling any situation that comes their way.
My main goal is to assist staff and care facilities in feeling confident, giving them the proper tools to deal with sexuality issues independently through training and education. I have developed several commercially successful e-learning methodologies as an introduction in the field of sexuality for geriatricians and nursing staff from nursing homes across the Netherlands.
Here is a list of some of the presentations I’ve given:
- ‘Second puberty; sex ed for seniors’, Sex Education Conference, Atlantic City, NJ, 2022.
- ‘The intersection between aging, sexuality, and consent’, Harvard Medical Center, Cambridge, MA, 2021.
- ‘sex, love, and aging’, CALA (California assisted living association) conference, Monterey, CA, 2019.
Here is a list of some of my publications:
Besides being a reviewer for SAGE, peer-reviewed journal collection, here are a few publications published or under review:
- ‘Sexual consent potential: an empowering view of sexual consent in people with dementia’. First Author. In a special edition of Generations journal. Published in winter 2022-2023.
- ‘Including sexuality: sex care services in Dutch nursing home care’. First author in the series ‘desexualisation in later life’ by Policy Press (2022).
- Co-author chapter ‘sexuality’ in the handbook ouderenpsychologie [handbook for gerontopsychology] in the Netherlands (2017).
In addition, my research and PhD dissertation highlight the importance of sexual consent in aging people with dementia. The title of my dissertation is, “The hidden expiration date on consent: a Delphi study to establish determinants of sexual consent in aging people with dementia.” (If you would like a copy, please reach out and I will send it to you)
