For years, the reminiscence care sector has appeared to the Hogeweyk dementia village within the Netherlands as a world commonplace for person-centered care – and there may be nonetheless extra that operators can study from it.
A handful of senior care consultants and operators visited the Hogeweyk earlier this yr, and all of them got here away with new concepts for the way U.S. senior dwelling suppliers can higher look after these dwelling with dementia.
The Hogeweyk, in Weesp, Netherlands, exterior of Amsterdam, opened in 2009 with an open village idea for these in numerous levels of cognitive decline or dementia analysis.
Right now, the dementia village has over 180 residents in 27 properties, with properties divided by way of life to replicate the methods residents stay their lives individually. For instance, if a potential resident lived their life in metropolitan areas, they may very well be positioned within the cosmopolitan-designed unit, or a resident who lived in rural elements of the nation may very well be positioned within the conventional kind of residence.
“[Residents] are put into a house that displays that design, and so they’re amongst individuals who share those self same sorts of emotions and that very same type of way of life, in order that they will extra simply construct connections with one another,” mentioned Adria Thompson, a speech pathologist who participated within the in-person academic go to to the Hogeweyk.
The open-concept group has numerous facilities generally present in cities world wide, together with a grocery retailer, theater, hair salon, bodily remedy constructing, and a upkeep workplace.
Residents of the Hogeweyk are all from the Netherlands, and their care is sponsored by the Dutch federal authorities to offer dementia care.
As much as seven residents stay collectively in every residence on the group. They’re grouped by way of life assessments, relatively than how senior care suppliers within the U.S. group residents by cognition and stage of care.
Of the Hogeweyk’s many options, Thompson famous that workers blended in with residents, with no uniforms or title badges figuring out employees inside the dementia village—which led to an additional sense of the group being its personal functioning city, she added.
Dementia Darling Founder Carrie Aalberts mentioned these visiting the Dutch dementia village from the U.S. “didn’t really perceive” the social mannequin employed by the Hogeweyk in comparison with a medical mannequin for dementia care – till stepping foot on the group grounds.
“It wasn’t a facade,” Aalberts mentioned. “Every little thing was actual. The grocery retailer was actual. We have been at a restaurant. It was so overwhelmingly superb to see how it may be executed. You’ll be able to stay on this world, and it provides me quite a lot of hope.”
Bella Groves co-founder James Lee mentioned he got here away with the notion that whereas senior dwelling operators within the U.S. do share info and greatest practices in dementia care, he urged operators to go additional.
“The Hogeweyk desires to assist different organizations create their very own variations of innovation. That basically struck me—that they weren’t attempting to repeat and paste the Hogeweyk into different locations,” he mentioned. “They need to advise and assist folks with no matter your imaginative and prescient of a greater world is for folks dwelling with dementia and their caregivers.”
In visiting the Hogeweyk, Thompson mentioned she was “dissatisfied” in pondering so typically of the dangers concerned with open-concept dementia villages, relatively than realizing the independence and way of life enrichment created for residents on the Hogeweyk.
“That’s altering my rehabilitation speech remedy mindset of mitigating danger,” Thompson added. “All of this construction makes me suppose that perhaps life is a little bit bit greater than that.”
In in the present day’s senior dwelling surroundings within the U.S., Lee mentioned suppliers view high quality of life on one axis after which age on one other axis, with the final premise being that as one ages, high quality of life degrades over time in a linear trend.
“So as a substitute of this gradual, linear decline in high quality of life over age, hold the standard of life as excessive as doable for so long as doable, and then you definately might need that steep decline there on the very finish of life,” Lee mentioned of Hogeweyk’s mannequin. “They’re saying, no matter that lifespan is, hold it as excessive so long as you probably can, after which give them dignity in these closing days.”
By instilling a way of independence and freedom, Aalberts mentioned residents of the Hogeweyk appeared proud of their high quality of life, noting the distinctive expertise of households purchasing every day for groceries to be cooked for that evening’s dinner as one instance of the Hogeweyk’s lifestyle-driven strategy to dementia care.
“It truly is that freedom facet,” Aalberts mentioned. “There wasn’t somebody saying, don’t go there or don’t go by that door—you didn’t really feel confined, and also you’re simply getting that vibe of life being lived round you.”
With the Hogeweyk’s expansive campus, leaders and workers have created “pure methods” for residents to have interaction socially as that they had executed for his or her total lives previous to transferring in—which created a way of ease and diminished stress amongst residents, Thompson mentioned.
“A part of the material of my life goes to the grocery retailer, making a meal, going to a espresso store and visiting with my pals, and due to how [The Hogeweyk] is structured, the byproduct of that’s pure objective and pleasure,” Thompson mentioned.
In visiting the group, Lee mentioned a “enormous takeaway” for him was the group’s use of grouping folks round life pursuits, with the Hogeweyk providing over 30 several types of social golf equipment residents might take part in.
“It’s going to alter the best way that we strategy sure issues that we do,” Lee mentioned. “It is a lot of stuff that can change how we strategy, I feel, the community of individuals at Bella Groves serving its personal group.”
