THE DUTCH VILLAGE WHERE EVERYONE HAS DEMENTIA So many of us are only a degree or two removed from dementia at any point in our lives. This kind of care for dementia patients is such a leap from our US standard of nursing homes, and it requires a much more socialistic approach to healthcare than the one we have now. But given that the illness affects so many of us and knows no party lines, perhaps one day well be inspired as a nation to support and care for our elderly, and by extension, us - their loved ones - in this way. scr __________ Hogewey is a cutting-edge elderly-care facility - roughly the size of 10 football fields - where residents are given the chance to live seemingly normal lives. There are no wards, long hallways, or corridors at the facility. Residents live in groups of six or seven to a house, with one or two caretakers. Perhaps the most unique element of the facility—apart from the stealthy “gardener” caretakers—is its approach toward housing. Hogeway features 23 uniquely stylized homes, furnished around the time period when residents’ short-term memories stopped properly functioning. There are homes resembling the 1950s, 1970s, and 2000s, accurate down to the tablecloths, because it helps residents feel as if they’re home. Residents are cared for by 250 full- and part-time geriatric nurses and specialists, who wander the town and hold a myriad of occupations in the village, like cashiers, grocery-store attendees, and post-office clerks. Finances are often one of the trickier life skills for dementia or Alzheimer’s patients to retain, which is why Hogewey takes it out of the equation; everything is included with the family’s payment plan, and there is no currency exchanged within the confines of the village. In traditional nursing homes, with their clinical appearance, the situation is openly communicated to residents—you’re sick, you can’t take care of yourself, you’re forgetting things again. But in Hogewey, the residents live in a place that looks and feels like home, even though it’s not; what others know to be a façade, they see as reality, which may help them to feel normal even in the midst of their disease. Psychologist Donald Spence defines the concept of “narrative reality” as the ways in which stories and places help link the “true” world to one that a person is better able to understand, using storytelling as a vehicle to understand the truth—you’re in a place that’s holistically normal, you’re not lost... In the years since Hogewey’s founding, dementia experts from the United States, United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, Japan, Norway, Switzerland, and Australia have all flocked to the unassuming Dutch town in the hopes of finding a blueprint for handling the global problem... But because cost is one of the greatest barriers to making self-contained villages the standard in dementia care, it would be extremely difficult to implement in a non-socialized healthcare system—meaning that in the U.S., a facility like Hogewey might be impossible for the forseeable future. ...Glimpses of lucidity...make the relatives of people with dementia yearn for an environment built around life rather than death. Hogewey hasn’t found a cure for dementia, but it’s found a path that’s changing ideas of how to treat those who can no longer take care of themselves. “This is a terrible disease, but this place makes me a little less scared of it, Elly Goedhart, the daughter of a Hogewey resident, told Time in February. Sometimes it truly does take a village. #dementia #eldercare #healthcarereform
Posted on: Fri, 14 Nov 2014 16:38:23 +0000
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