It Takes a Village

If you’ve ever visited a loved one in a dementia care facility, it probably didn’t look anything like Hogeweyk, located in an Amsterdam suburb. That’s because Hogeweyk is less of a facility and more of a village. “If it looked like a typical Dutch town — with a restaurant (which is open to the public), a theater, a pub and a cluster of quaint two-story brick townhomes on a gridded street map — well, that’s the point. Many of the people here don’t realize that they are living in the world’s first so-called ‘dementia village,’ and it can be difficult for visitors to tell the difference between the residents and the plainclothes staff.” NYT (Gift Article): As Cases Soar, ‘Dementia Villages’ Look Like the Future of Home Care. Even these much better care scenarios can’t keep up with our aging society and the increase in dementia cases. “Over the past decade, as the number of dementia cases has exploded worldwide, more ‘dementia villages’ and senior ‘microtowns’ have opened across the globe. But experts worry that if the senior-care community is going to keep pace with diagnoses, there will have to be another major paradigm shift, and quickly. In essence, they want the Hogeweyks of the future to not just resemble real towns, but to be real towns.”

+ In America, memory care will just be one of the challenges that come with an aging population. The boomers are retiring. And that changes everything. WaPo (Gift Article): America’s aging population is reshaping the workforce, with far-reaching economic consequences.