<
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/annals-of-inquiry/a-french-villages-radical-vision-of-a-good-life-with-alzheimers>
"This summer, before going to see my grandmother in Grenoble, I visited a
nursing home that aims to expand, not restrict, the liberties of people with
Alzheimer’s. The Village Landais, situated in Dax, in southwestern France, is
part of a movement to make memory-care units less like hospitals and more like
small neighborhoods. Some of these facilities are designed to convince
residents that little has changed—“that life is still as it was once, with
children to take care of, and holidays at the seashore, and familiar homes to
return to,” as Larissa MacFarquhar wrote for
The New Yorker in 2018. But the
Village seemed to convey a slightly different message: that life remains full
of choices and that autonomy enriches life. Its residents can come and go from
their homes as they please, whether through the unlocked door or through a
window. They can wake and shower at their leisure; they can shout, pilfer
sweets, make tea at 2 A.M., sweep with the broom upside down, and handle sharp
knives in the kitchen. Advocates for this kind of care argue that, for people
with Alzheimer’s, the risks of institutional dehumanization are just as
profound as the physical dangers of cutting one’s hand, or falling and breaking
a bone. “Their cognitive troubles don’t permit them to adapt to our world,”
Gaëlle Marie-Bailleul, the Village’s head of medicine and a specialist in
neurodegenerative disorders told me. “We adapt to them.” Most nursing homes
devote themselves to the narrow and perfectly reasonable goal of keeping
residents safe and healthy. The Village Landais contemplates a broader
question: What might a good life with Alzheimer’s look like?"
Via
The Fixer November 30, 2022:
<
https://reasonstobecheerful.world/in-this-french-village-people-with-alzheimers-are-encouraged-to-roam/>
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
