Inside the Dutch 'dementia village' that offers beer, bingo, and top-notch healthcare

dementia village

Residents of Hogeweyk, a village located in Weesp, Netherlands, lead a normal life. They go to the grocery store, complain about the weather, and enjoy a weekly game of bingo.

But there's one thing that sets the 152 residents apart from the general public: Everyone has an advanced form of dementia.

Hogeweyk is a nursing home disguised to look like the outside world. It helps people with mild to severe dementia suffer a little bit less in their remaining years, facility manager Eloy van Hal told Business Insider. He said it preserves people's sense of autonomy.

The village is comprised of 23 houses, each with six to seven residents and a caregiver who cooks, takes people to social events, helps them go grocery shopping at the village market, and watches over them to ensure their safety.

Here's what life is like inside Hogeweyk's walls.

Hogeweyk started in 1993 as your typical hospital-style nursing home. But the staff soon realized there was a better, more humane, way to offer care.

"We said to each other 'What do we want for ourselves and our moms and dads?" van Hal said.

The consensus was that people wanted normalcy, at least to the extent caregivers could provide it. Gradually, Hogeweyk began folding in elements of the outside world. It started by creating 23 houses in four different "lifestyle" categories — cosmopolitan, nature-oriented, well-to-do, and traditional Dutch.

"You have to choose," van Hal said. "Which is the lifestyle according to your preferences?"

Staff at Hogeweyk are trained to focus on highlighting what residents can do, not what they can't.

Hogeweyk places a great deal of importance on word choice, van Hal said. The staff members don't treat patients — they care for residents.

"All the residents living here need medical treatment, yes. They all have medication. They all have [an] advanced stage of dementia," van Hal said. "But they are first a person. That's why there are people living here with dementia, and not demented people."

Hogeweyk caregivers and house attendants use an in-house currency to help their residents buy groceries at a fully-functional supermarket.

The residents can also use real money if they want to, Hal said. Only a handful are lucid enough to do so, and typically they spend it on small items like toothpaste and candy bars.

As part of the facility's normal budgeting process, a chunk of money (not real currency) is doled out to each of the 23 houses. With some help from the caregivers, it's up to the houses to budget the money how they see fit over the course of the month.

See the rest of the story at Business Insider