News

The Alzheimer’s village project is making progress. On Monday 2 February, the Departmental Council submitted a formal application to the Ministry of Social Affairs.

‘For the project to go ahead, we need the ministry to cover the wages of the healthcare professionals’, confirmed Henri Emmanuelli at a press conference. In addition to the significant investment of 23 million euros, the annual running costs will be around 10 million euros.

Indeed, this type of innovative facility requires a lot of staff: for 120 residents housed in a secure area of over one hectare, we need 120 medical personnel and the same number of volunteers (families, youth service volunteers, etc.).

There will also be a call for sponsors to fund this village, enclosed by its outer walls, where the streets and squares are home to coffee shops, a hairdresser’s and a grocery store, with no white coats in sight, said Jean-Claude Deyres, Vice-President of the Departmental Council, on his return from the Netherlands, from where the model was taken. ‘It could be good for the image of large groups’ to support the first project of this kind in France, according to Henri Emmanuelli.

Alzheimer-type neurodegenerative diseases affect 6-7,000 people and 17% of over-75s in Landes. 4,000 are cared for in retirement or care homes; the rest still live with their families. But only a third of institutions offer facilities tailored to this disease.

‘The ministry is keen to support a trial’ because this type of accommodation helps care for people with fewer drugs’, emphasised the president of the Departmental Council. By offering more support, ‘we reduce drug prescriptions’, agreed Catherine Le Mercier from the Agence Régionale de Santé (ARS) Landes. For this disease, for which there is not yet a cure, maintaining a social life can ‘reduce symptoms, especially stress, for residents’.

According to Nicholas Portolan, from the ARS, this project of the future, whose approach boils down to ‘more compassion’, will be ‘person-centred: we adapt to the disease, not the other way round’ by ‘ensuring patients have as much independence and freedom as possible’.

As for the site of this new ‘village’ in Landes, it will be either on the outskirts of Dax or Mont-de-Marsan, or on the coast. But the need for staff and volunteers seems to tilt the balance in favour one of the two towns.