11/10/14  In the Netherlands a village for people living with dementia was structured based on their needs and limitations. The result was a safe place for people to live until they died.

The idea of starting with the needs of people and structuring an appropriate environment from scratch is brilliant. Unfortunately, here in the States we use a piecemeal approach that makes minor modifications to existing structures and tweaking service delivery systems.

What would happen if we adopted the Dutch dementia approach to caring for Alzheimer’s patients? Persons with physical disabilities? Elders? Those struggling with chronic Illness? Living with cancer? See my the article on adaptation.