[HN Gopher] A Dutch Village Where Everyone Has Dementia (2014)
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       A Dutch Village Where Everyone Has Dementia (2014)
        
       Author : ElFitz
       Score  : 35 points
       Date   : 2023-07-03 05:46 UTC (17 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.theatlantic.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.theatlantic.com)
        
       | rhelz wrote:
       | Now ask yourself: how do you know you are not already a resident
       | of a village like that?
        
       | zial wrote:
       | Some funny math there saying it only costs $8k a month and then
       | saying US costs an astonishing 90k a year. Do they realize 8*12
       | is 96k a year?
        
         | themerone wrote:
         | More than half that cost is subsidized. The maximum cost to
         | residents is $43k, and it is on a sliding scale based on family
         | income.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | bell-cot wrote:
       | Reaction: Lovely - but the article notes that it has 152
       | residents, vs. 250 full- and part-time staff. If more than a very
       | small percentage of a country's older folks develop dementia, and
       | the country's population is not growing exponentially...then such
       | well-staffed solutions are physically impossible to implement at
       | scale, for lack of working-age care staff.
        
         | wak90 wrote:
         | I don't think that's clear at all.
         | 
         | Working age adults work from their early 20s to their 60s and
         | end of life care does not typically last that long.
        
           | EA-3167 wrote:
           | EOL with dementia can linger for well over a decade, and it
           | only gets more expensive as it goes on.
        
             | Retric wrote:
             | Most people don't experience dementia, and most of those
             | who have it don't need such extreme care. Taken to an
             | extreme, this radio suggests under 5% of a steady state
             | population would either have significant dementia or need
             | to treat it. But again most such people are cared for by
             | family members.
             | 
             | The point of this Village is to minimize the cost of
             | treating significant outliers while maximizing their
             | quality of life.
        
               | DiggyJohnson wrote:
               | So it would need to scale out to 10s of thousands, no?
        
               | Retric wrote:
               | If everyone with dementia went to such a facility then we
               | would need ~30,000 of them in the US. However, most
               | people with dementia either don't need such extreme care
               | or have more severe medical issues, so the real number is
               | probably a several hundred such facilities.
        
       | londons_explore wrote:
       | Some people with dementia get violent. I bet it isn't a pretty
       | sight when a bunch of 80 year olds start fighting over who stole
       | Theodore's false teeth!
        
         | swader999 wrote:
         | Or tabs versus spaces. It's best just to hide the keyboards
         | after 78.
        
       | ElFitz wrote:
       | It has already been posted here before [1], but given how little
       | nursing homes seem to have changed, I find it still relevant, and
       | perhaps of interest to others who like me hadn't read about it
       | until today.
       | 
       | [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8616383
        
         | wdb wrote:
         | There are a lot of activities organised on a city/town level by
         | the Dutch Alzheimer Foundation chapters, such as Alzheimer
         | Cafe, Creatieve Werkplaats, Bijzonder ontmoeten, Cooking
         | Together, Choir, hiking/walking, etc
        
           | mahathu wrote:
           | That's not all, besides Alzheimer Cafe, Creatieve Werkplaats
           | and Bijzonder ontmoeten, there are also Gezellige Kletsen,
           | Gronkelstoot Spelletjes and Zorgzame Knoetelbijeenkomsten.
        
           | mike_hock wrote:
           | I just visited a place called "Alzheimer's Cafe," but I can't
           | remember the name of the place.
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2023-07-03 23:00 UTC)