Village Designed For People With Dementia Ensures Residents A Sense Of Autonomy

Mar 31, 2023

A gated community located on the outskirts of Weesp, some 20 kilometers from Amsterdam, may look like any other small town with its own grocery store, barber or theater. However, the over 150 residents of this Dutch village known as the Hogeweyk have one thing in common: they don't know that their community is a nursing home for dementia patients. 

According to the World Health Organization, over 55 million people in the world suffer from dementia, a variety of brain diseases that impact a person's ability to think, remember, react, communicate, or perform daily tasks. Alzheimer's disease is the most common form of dementia, affecting more than 60 to 70% of patients. Most care facilities for dementia patients are institutionalized, but the Hogeweyk was designed differently than a traditional nursing home.

In the 1990s, Yvonne van Amerongen, a former nursing home staff, envisioned a care facility where patients in the advanced stages of dementia may still enjoy their independence while receiving 24/7 care and support. Van Amerongen relayed to The Atlantic in 2014 that her experiences at her place of work gave her the resolve to carry out her plans because she never wanted her parents to spend the last days of their lives in an unremarkable building with long corridors or hallways that smelled like a clinic.

Along with the other founders of the Hogeweyk, Van Amerongen believed that a patient's environment might help improve some of the issues associated with dementia, especially behavioral problems. After years of planning and with some funding help from the Dutch government, Van Amerongen and a team of experienced nursing home workers opened Hogeweyk in 2009 as the first care facility of its kind.

In Hogeweyk, the residents are settled among different houses in groups of six or seven individuals. These houses are styled and furnished as inspired by different periods between the 1950s to the 2000s. The elements in these houses help the residents recall their best memories so they feel more comfortable.

Every house has one or two caregivers in plain clothes and not in orderly uniforms. Around the village, more than 250 staff members are employed to provide service for dementia patients, but they are also in street clothes. Lucid residents may use money to pay for their grocery purchases. The facility has its own currency, and the houses are given a regular budget. 

Cameras monitor every corner of the village. While visitors are encouraged, there's only one access to go in and out; thus, the residents are always safe and secure. Social events like bingo nights are regularly arranged to allow the residents to interact with their neighbors. However, some introverted residents may prefer to simply take a stroll in the courtyard or sit on the benches with their caregivers. 

But the Hogeweyk has received criticisms as a fake community comparable to the made-up town in "The Truman Show" starring Jim Carrey. Some critics said that fooling dementia patients could be a form of mistreatment. 

"If you think it's artificial: well, yes, you can argue that. But if someone can't live in their own home anymore, what would you prefer?" Jacqueline Hoogendam of the Dutch Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport argued against the criticisms. Since its opening, the concepts of Hogeweyk have been adopted with some tweaks in new care facilities in Italy, British Columbia, Switzerland and the U.S. 

The idea behind the Hogeweyk is for people to live as normally as possible despite their condition. Do you like the idea of a dementia village? Do you think this kind of environment is helpful to a patient? Tell someone who may be supportive of the concept and who will enjoy this story!