Assisted Living Facility Creates Mock Town To Help Residents With Alzheimer’s

Check this out: after a user on Reddit posted a photo of an assisted living facility “designed to look like a golf course community,” the internet ate it up.

h/t: the-daily.buzz. All photos courtesy of Lantern.

The facility is Lantern of Chagrin Valley in Chagrin Falls, Ohio. It is one of three facilities designed specifically to improve the quality of life for Alzheimer’s and dementia patients. The hallways are carpeted green to look like grass. The interior courtyards and corridors have been built to resemble houses with front porches overlooking a golf course. A sound system plays the sounds of birds chirping. Fiber optics in a “sky ceiling” mimic daytime and nighttime. Those who suffer from Alzheimer’s tend to retain memories from their younger years, so the facility serves as a time capsule for these seniors, many of whom grew up during the 1930s and 1940s.

Lantern’s design concept is part of a program provided by Svayus. Lantern CEO and occupational therapist, Jean Makesh, developed the program in 2007, but did not get investors on board until 2010. They encouraged him, he says, “to take a risk.”

Makesh says that controlled environments reduce incidences of anger, irritation and depression in dementia patients: “Every little thing you see, the wall color, the paint, actually has a therapeutic benefit, a therapeutic value.”

According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 5 million Americans lived with Alzheimer’s Disease in 2013. The number is expected to grow nearly three times this amount by 2050.