Adults of the revolution

     Try for a moment, to imagine yourself as a seventy-year old person. How do you envisage spending your retirement? In your own house, surrounded by your family and trinkets from your life that you know and love? In your villa in Spain with your partner or on your own? Or stuck in the alleyway of the Last Chance Saloon; the nursing home. With that in mind, imagine you have been diagnosed as suffering from dementia. Memories from your former life wiped away to the point where you find yourself forgetting why you are sitting in a certain chair, what you came into a room for, or who the person beside you is even though you have been speaking to them for an hour. Would you again, like to be in your own house, surrounded by your family and trinkets from your life that you know and love? Of course you would. Me too. But for many people suffering from dementia, even with the best intentions they end up in dull and clinical nursing homes, being prescribed a cocktail of medicine and drugs to keep them from "being difficult", having their daily life routine turned on its head to meet guidelines set in place by nursing home management. I know that these places would not be where I would want my parents to end up if we were not able to take care of them, and for myself personally, I would rather rot in my own house than enter into a soulless place like so many of these care homes are.

     However, there is an alternative, currently in practice in Holland, with a new one being rolled out in Switzerland and one on the books for opening in Germany. It really is a revolutionary place, currently being dubbed The Truman Show for dementia patients, and I for one, have been astounded by the amount of care, foresight, and thoughtfulness that has gone into turning one former care home of doom, into a model of how we would all like to end up when the time comes. To the naked eye, Hogewey  looks like a village you will find anywhere across Europe, with little grocery stores, cafés, restaurants, hairdressers and a cinema all located within easy reach of the apartment building where the residents of Hogewey live. But upon closer inspection, you will find that the check out person in the shop is actually specially trained to deal with dementia sufferers, the managers of the restaurants have degrees in mental health nursing, and so on. The residents, from all walks of life, are asked to fill in a survey to find out their likes and dislikes, their backgrounds, working lives, family lives, location of where they once lived, musical interests and are grouped into seven different categories judging by their answers. From there, instead of one central unit being the main living room for numerous residents of a home to congregate, the buildings have been divided up to share houses, accommodating an average of eight people, from generally the same backgrounds or religious beliefs. There are working class accommodation where by the staff are almost part of the family and can be found standing in the living room ironing the residents clothes while watching television with them. The upper class homes have servants, along the lines of Downton Abbey, whereby the staff are never seen, the silverware is always polished and the napkins neatly folded. They cater for people who have lived in the countryside all their lives, ditto people who are used to living in towns and cities. There is a pub, cookery clubs, wine tasting clubs, reading clubs, a local library, where perhaps if you were a bar man once upon a time, you can actually work behind the bar serving the other residents. It serves the purpose of people being looked after by health care professionals, yet are still able to keep hold of their former lives whereby they felt wanted and needed. 

     Why hasn't this been done before, is one of the many questions rolling around my head as I read more and more about Hogewey? Granted, you can expect to pay €5000 per month for this, but for the safety of knowing you or your family will be looked after without being smothered or left to rot in a magnolia painted room and staring at the walls. They have freedom to basically do what they want, but under the watch of people trained to look after them. In short, it seems an ideal solution for not only dementia sufferers, but for anyone reaching the care home age. Of course, with the UK and Ireland a Health and Safety regulated mess, could this ever work off the continent? I hope so. Hogewey's motto is Different til you Die, whereby they treat the individual rather than blanket treatment for anyone suffering from the debilitating disease of dementia. It's a place where they find out who the resident really is, and act accordingly to their needs. If I had my choice by the time that period rolls around for me, then Hogewey is where I would like to go, not some hospital-like home where you go by the homes routine, and not your own, eat food that you cook yourself, not something that magically arrives on your table as if from nowhere, where the stay chameleonise themselves to suit your needs and your lifestyle. 

     It's about time the elderly were treated with the respect they deserve, and with the dignity they should have. Think of any elderly person you know, be it your grandparents if you are lucky enough to have them, or a neighbour or a friend, and think about any of the stories they told you about their lives. Chances are, they had it tough for a long time, surviving wars and rations and poverty and high mortality rates, working hard for little money, striving to keep a family afloat. If any of us endured the hardships that most people over the age of seventy have gone through, you would want to see out your life in the way you are accustomed to. How thrilling does the prospect of a place like Hogewey seem, where you can live in a houseshare of like minded people, ones who enjoy a drink and a life, ones where people are quiet and keep to themselves, but still enjoy the company of others, or any other kind of lifestyle you can imagine. If, of course I am in no position but to go to a place like this, having no family around to look after me or being corpus mentos enough to take care of myself, then I will be booking myself a one way ticket to Hogewey. Different Til I Die: not just for the young uns.