Village in Holland has been created for patients with dementia promising a unique solution for the care of the elderly.
Dementia, including Alzheimer’s, is one of the fastest growing diseases in the world. Pending a cure or a treatment, caring for an aging population is going to be an enormous social problems. However the Dutch have devised a unique solution by building a village called De Hogeweyk built inside the town of Weesp that is solely for people suffering from dementia and their caregivers, according to Gizmodo.
De Hogeweyk is part assisted living facility and part community. Instead of comprising a single building or compound with a strict lock down policy for the protection of the residents, the village contains all the amenities for living, including apartments, shops, and restaurants. The idea is for people with dementia to live lives as ordinary as possible, close enough to their caregivers that they will be available as quickly as possible. The village is enclosed by a fence and security gates to prevent the residents from wandering off into the outside world and endangering themselves.
Everything is designed, from the décor of the apartments, to the layout of the village to provide as familiar an environment as possible. Unlike someone who is homebound or locked up in an assisted care facility, a resident of De Hogeweyk can go shopping, eat out, perform housework, or stroll in the garden and along the pedestrian boulevard.
A special village for people with dementia would seem to be a far more humane solution for long term care than locking them up in a special facility. Such an approach would make easy a person’s declining years by making them as close as possible to ordinary life.
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