03/12/2014
Caring for dementia sufferers is difficult, but a Dutch care home has found a unique approach to care for patients: let them live in their past realities.
Since its inception in 2009, Hogewey in Weesp, Netherlands have housed 152 dementia residents who were given freedom to live their former lives while simultaneously being cared and watched for by specialist carers.
Hogewey residents are free to move about in the 16187.4 square metres village comprised of 23 houses with seven various lifestyle schemes, including urban, artistic and religious themes. Each Hogewey resident owns a room that has a unique furnishing to match the lifestyle the patient is most familiar with. The village also has a beauty centre, restaurant, park, theatre, and grocery store attended by its own staff dressed as hairdressers, cashiers, barmen and ground-keepers. Residents are free to stroll in the park and even shop for grocery items like milk and juice.
Yvonne van Amerongen, Hogewey’s co-founder, said that their unique approach has led to reduced prescription for aggression and anxiety medications among patients. She also noted that Hogewey residents are more jubilant and less depressed than that other care homes.
The distinct approach of Hogewey in caring for dementia patients has caught the attention of healthcare leaders in various countries. Switzerland has in fact approved a €20 million self-contained village for dementia sufferers in Wiedlisbach that will be opened in 2017.
There is no indication as of this writing that a similar dementia village will be set up in the UK. Suffolk’s Baylham Care Centre, however, have come close to helping dementia sufferers live in their own realities.
Baylham Care Centre’s staff has made faux 1950s greengrocer’s, sweet shop, butcher’s shop, post office, and haberdashery after noticing residents became comfortable in performing usual activities they were familiar with.
The centre’s manager, Sandie Oxborrow, told the Daily Mail this June 2014 that: “The village gives the residents the ability to have a normal life with meaningful engagements rather than just activities which fill in time.”
