The Real Life Truman Show!

bycosmicradio

5.9K followers

7 years ago

I've just learned of a small Dutch village, called Hogewey, which has been called "The Truman Show," for its likeness to the 1998 Jim Carrey movie about an insurance salesman who discovers his entire life is actually a TV show.

Hogewey, like the town pictured above from the movie, isn't a real village, it's a nursing home for dementia patients, located on the outskirts of Amsterdam.

The picturesque village boasts tree-lined streets, shops, restaurants, a movie theater, and a beauty shop, as well as furnishings and entertainment from familiar decades. (Who doesn't like Oldies Music?)

There are 23 apartments, decorated to feel like home to the village's 152 residents.

The idea is that residents feel like they are living a normal life.

All the people working incognito in the villlage (as cashiers, waitresses, restaurant managers, etc.) are trained dementia caregivers, and treat the residents as though they are friends and neighbors.

Residents believe it is a real village, and they are free to wander about the self-contained village as they like. They walk together, talk together, shop, or just relax and make themselves feel at home.

Hogewey residents have less stress, and require less medication.

Hogewey cost about $25 million dollars to build.

In the US, Towsley Village Memory Care Center, in Chelsea, Michigan, has 100 dementia patients living in "four distinct neighborhoods, complete with 50's-style coffee shops."

There are other such facilities, scattered throughout the US.

What a wonderful idea!

The elderly people in our countries have earned the right to live the final years of their lives with peace and dignity.