Before Catherine Winckler ever stepped into health tech, she was building experiences meant to entertain. Early in her career, the writer turned-producer coordinated contestants on game shows with hosts like Monty Hall and Alex Trebek. Later, she founded and led an interactive design studio creating large-scale digital environments for film, TV and live events, including a 110-foot sensory wall and immersive touchscreen installations for the Vancouver 2010 Olympics.
“I’ve always been a storyteller,” said Catherine. “I know how to put people together to make things happen.”
A Founder’s Journey from Storytelling to Health Innovation
She just never imagined those skills would one day lead her into hospitals. That shift came after the death of her 77-year old mother, Esther, a retired educator who went into the hospital for elective hip surgery and never came home. A two-year coroner’s investigation later identified more than 30 factors in her death, including undiagnosed delirium and the overuse of restraints and psychotropic drugs.
Instead of launching a lawsuit, Catherine began publicly documenting her mother’s story and researching a problem most families don’t know
exists. Her findings were astounding. In seniors, hospital-acquired delirium can show up as confusion, fear and agitation, and is often misdiagnosed as dementia.
Too often, it’s treated with sedatives and antipsychotics and, according to Catherine, these interventions can increase mortality threefold and contribute to a higher risk of cognitive decline ninefold. “I started to look at what was happening to those patients,” she said. “And it was being exacerbated by antipsychotic drugs and physical restraints. And in a senior, that just makes it even worse.”
In her quest to document her mother’s story and advocate for continuity of care, Catherine began speaking at nursing conferences. For years, it
was personal work, separate from her digital career, until one nurse asked her a question that changed everything: “What could you do to change the lives of seniors so we’re not giving them so many drugs?”
How MindfulGarden Is Changing Care for Seniors Experiencing Delirium
The question stuck and further fueled Catherine’s belief that there had to be a gentler way to deal with hospital-acquired delirium in seniors. She realized the same immersive technologies she’d built for entertainment, with motion sensors, responsive visuals and calming digital environments, might have a place in healthcare. And so, she founded MindfulGarden.
MindfulGarden repurposes those same interactive digital tools Catherine once used in entertainment to help calm patients without medication. Designed to be immediately usable in acute settings, the platform is mounted on a mobile cart and uses soft light, soundscapes and biofeedback to gently distract and de-escalate agitation. Catherine used simple terms to describe her groundbreaking technology: “A video game played by the body that the body doesn’t know it’s playing.”
Unlike Virtual Reality, patients do not need to wear a headset to experience the platform’s benefits. Nurses can wheel MindfulGarden to the bedside and let the environment respond in real time – a departure from nurses having to restrain agitated seniors experiencing delirium.
How DELIA Funding Helped MindfulGarden Move from Research to Real-World Use
Early research into the MindfulGarden platform was promising and included clinical results later published in Nature npj Digital Medicine. But like
many startups, MindfulGarden hit a practical wall. Hospitals wanted real-world evaluations. Evaluations required equipment. Equipment required capital. Catherine needed to secure early-stage funding and turned to DELIA for that capital.
DELIA, Nventure ’s national women entrepreneurship loan fund, provides loans of up to $50,000 to women-owned businesses across Canada, supported by Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED). For MindfulGarden, the funding created a critical bridge between research and reality. With units deployed in hospitals, nurses could test the technology, offer feedback and help refine the product. . “This was the right amount of money at the perfect time,” said Catherine. “What it did was accelerate our ability to acquire what we needed to do the evaluations.”
Today, MindfulGarden is in evaluations in hospitals in Vancouver and Hong Kong, with an Asia-first expansion strategy underway and Health Canada clearance already secured. “If we hadn’t had the equipment available with the software ready that the loan provided, I wouldn’t have been able to get the funding that brought us into hospitals.”
Building a Business with Purpose
A proud, self-proclaimed ‘senior entrepreneur,’ Catherine is reflective on the journey that led her to MindfulGarden. “There’s a lot to be said for
reinvention,” she said. “This is probably my last startup – and it’s the one that matters most.”
From game show stages to Olympic installations to hospital rooms, her work has always shaped how people feel in a space. Now, it’s helping patients find something medicine sometimes forgets: calm, dignity and a softer path home. MindfulGarden began in grief and has grown into
purpose – a tribute to Esther’s legacy, and proof of the impact one determined daughter can make.
To learn more about DELIA and apply today:
www.nventure.ca
