Aged Care Insite Issue 102 | Aug-Sep 2017 | Page 16

industry & policy

Designing a dementia village

Glenview Korongee aerial view . Photo : HESTA
What does it take to build a village dedicated to dementia ?
Lucy O ’ Flaherty interviewed by Dallas Bastian

Excitement over the idea of dementia villages has been bubbling in the aged care sector for years . Pioneered overseas in countries like the Netherlands , these care facilities resemble small contained towns , complete with amenities like cafes , beauty salons , theatres and supermarkets that residents are free to visit as they please . Now , plans have been unveiled for the Tasmanian suburb of Glenorchy to be home to one such village .

Not-for-profit aged care provider Glenview will transform an unused site in Glenorchy into a facility based on a cul-de-sac streetscape . Glenview chief executive Lucy O ’ Flaherty said the Korongee village concept draws on a range of international best practice models , particularly the dementia village of De Hogeweyk in the Netherlands . She said residents in these homes live longer , eat better and take fewer medications , and Glenview hopes to see similar transformative health benefits at Korongee .
Korongee ’ s 15 houses , each with six bedrooms , will be staffed by health professionals who dress casually and will be seen as homemakers , charged with making the experience as true to home living as possible . Residents within each house will be matched by their similar backgrounds , experiences , interests and skills .
“ A person who has worked as a tradesman all their life will most likely have a routine involving an early start and knocking off at 3pm . Alternatively , artists or creative folk may rise later and have later evenings , and weekends that are highly social – two lifestyles not necessarily conducive to each other ,” O ’ Flaherty said .
Glenview also intends to ensure residents will have more control over their routines or lack thereof . They will be welcome to wake up and go about their day in their own time .
“ If they want to make themselves a piece of toast in the middle of the night , they can do that ,” O ’ Flaherty said .
The development of the Korongee village is a partnership between Glenview , HESTA , Social Ventures Australia ( SVA ) and the federal government . HESTA has invested $ 19 million to finance the village through its Social Impact Investment Trust , managed by SVA , which aims to invest in opportunities that deliver both an appropriate financial return and a measurable social impact .
Debby Blakey , chief executive of HESTA , said not only will the venture provide a world-class facility for the community , it will benefit members by earning a return , and act as a model for investing in aged care that could attract other big players .
Blakey said : “ We heard about the great work Glenview was doing , and because HESTA has a specific focus on identifying investment opportunities in our sector , we were able to explore how we could support this fantastic project .”
Construction is planned to commence in early 2018 , with the site to be complete by mid to late 2019 .
Aged Care Insite sat down with O ’ Flaherty to find out more about the village .
ACI : So , let ’ s say Korongee is fully operational . As someone walks through it , what would they see ? LO : If you can imagine walking through a regional neighbourhood : tree-lined streetscapes , people coming in and out of homes , getting on with their daily business . Maybe people walking down to the shops to grab a coffee , maybe people sitting on park benches having a chat . The activities you and I would normally see as we engage in our day-to-day events , that ’ s exactly what you would see in this village , because what we ’ re trying to create are real-life experiences , specifically for those living with dementia .
It ’ s about understanding that familiarity and reminiscence and so forth are the important key factors for their success .
We know that distressed environments such as institutional or hospital environments only contribute towards people ’ s ability to feel confused and anxious and so forth . So by creating familiar environments which are real life , we hope to de-stress those environments and actually give people a better life .
What role do staff play ? How will working in Korongee differ from previous or more traditional roles ? Well , it ’ s taken us about five years to get to where we are today , and we ’ ve looked to not just what happens within our own state , but what happens nationally , and we ’ ve gone overseas , to Europe and the United States , and we ’ ve taken the best of what operates in other countries and other states . We ’ ve been able to distil that down to this new workforce , which is actually homemakers .
So , as opposed to someone being a carer and having a fairly clearly defined role , staff working in the Korongee project will actually be homemakers . They ’ ll be doing the cooking , the planning , the personal care . They ’ ll be running the activities . They ’ ll very much be living with the resident where they ’ re at . So if somebody decides they want to make scones , well that ’ s what you
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