HLN had Dr. Grupna (sp?) on this AM. He was talking about a special "village" in Holland for people with Alzheimer's disease. Of course I had to research it on Google (this is where the "too much usage" comes in- I always have to research-LOL). I found some very interesting info and, if you're interested, take a look:
Hogewey - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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more websites (because some of the stories where nice):
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Alzhei...dubbed-truman-show-dementia/story?id=16103780
http://www.spiegel.de/international...ementia-offers-alternative-care-a-824582.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/25/w...s-normal-life-to-dementia-patients.html?_r=1&
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/aug/27/dementia-village-residents-have-fun
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Dementia is widely acknowledged to be one of the most pressing problems facing health and social care systems. A report published this year by the World Health Organisation predicted that a continually ageing population in the developed world would mean the number of people with the condition was likely to double, to more than 65 million, by 2030, and treble 20 years later.
In Britain, an Oxford University study puts the number of people with dementia at more than 800,000, rising to more than 1 million by 2025. We spend £23bn a year on caring for the condition in this country, double the sum we spend on cancer and three times that on heart disease. A quarter of UK hospital beds are now occupied by people with the condition.
In March David Cameron talked of a "national crisis". As we live longer, and more and more of us develop the degenerative brain illnesses such as Alzheimer's disease, which are the most common cause of the condition, how society cares for people with dementia, he said, has become "one of the greatest challenges of our time".
Over the past few months, experts from around the world – Germany, the US, Australia, soon Britain – have been flocking to the unassuming small Dutch town of Weesp, half an hour south-east of Amsterdam, to see how one pioneering institution is dealing with that challenge. Hogewey, where Jo Verhoeff lives, has developed an innovative, humane and apparently affordable way of caring for people with dementia.
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After I retired from Wall Stree (I was tired of pushing papre around), I needed to do something , so I worked with people who had Alzheimer's for 15 years. It was the best job I ever had. I made a lot of money working on Wall Street and did a lot of entertaining- the Playboy Club, The Rainbow Room, etc.; I wore expensive suits and had my nails done every week, but I was never really happy being a manager of 23 clerks and 3 supervisors. When they wanted to promote me to AVP, I said NO and finally retired.
Helping the people at the nursing home wasn't glamourous, but it was so fulfilling- I felt that I finally found my "vocation" in life. The people I helped had so much unbridled love
-I had so many kisses from them and even if they never remembered my name from day to day, they did remember my face. (I also received a lot of scratches, spitting-on, and slaps in the face-LOL, but it didn't matter.) They didn't have their "masks" on and were very "real". It was worse for the relatives than the residents- they felt so guilty and mourned what they have "lost" instead of concentrating on what was there now in their relatives. The residents were "happy" in their world- we treated them very well where I worked. I miss them even now.
Anyway, thanks for listening.