Around 5.30 each evening patient Norma would he stand up and tell the staff at her Ohio nursing home that she had to depart and leave. When the staff at the nursing home would ask her why then she would tell them that she needed to go back home in order to care for her elderly mother. Of course her mother had passed away many years previously, it was a long distant and repetitive memory.
For anyone such as Norma who is suffering from Alzheimer’s or other forms of dementia these behavioural traits are common. For instance Walter, another man in the same care home would  insist on receiving his morning breakfast from the staff each evening at around 7:30pm. These regular occurrences are all too common experiences for the families of those who are severely affected by relatives with Alzhiemers disease or severe dementia.
Jean Makesh, CEO of Lantern assisted living facilities and care homes, says he meets many people with sad and depressing tales like these every day of the week. However it was stories such as these that inspired him to make some big innovative design changes at his company, Lantern. He wanted to create some amazing nursing homes for the elderly patients in his care.
“I thought I knew a lot about elderly care. The more and more time I was spending with my clients, that’s when I realized, ‘Oh my god, I have no clue.'”
Confusion is a common factor in most Alzheimer’s patients, but Makesh knew there had to be some way to reduce the impact of these terrible occurrences and increase quality of life.
Makesh was a determined believer in the notion that our environment has a significant effect on our day to day comfort and security. So he started thinking big and making imaginative new plans that were way outside the usual box.
Amazing Nursing Homes – Designing the Outside
Jean Makesh went away and thought for some time about how he might realize his vision then came back and said:
“What if we design an environment that looks like outside?”
He also said “What if I can have a sunrise and sunset inside the building? What if I’m able to have the moon and stars come out at night? What if I build a self contained unit that takes residents back to the ’30s and ’40s?” These being the times in their lives when they were young and better engaged with the wider world.
This was just the beginning of mapping out his idea and vision. Makesh continued by researching sound therapy. Then swiftly followed by aromatherapy. Then by researching the idea of carpet that looked like fresh grass and so on. For building designer Makesh no idea was off-limits or considered to be off the table.
A Culmination of Unique Design Ideas
The culmination of all these thought processes, concepts and ideas was a truly unique memory-care facility. After robustly testing the design concept in Lantern’s Madison, Ohio, facility, Makesh is continuing to open two new bespoke residential care facilities this year in 2016.
Instead of dull rooms or units, each nursing home resident gets a “unique home” situated on a quiet little indoor street that is reminiscent of the familiar areas that so many of them grew up in.
Rather than show off of a boring panel ceiling, residents can gaze upward and instead enjoy a digital sky, one that gradually grows dimmer late in the day which assists to maintain their biological clocks.
Across the breadth of the entire day, nature sounds and fresh scents and aromas such as peppermint or citrus are piped in via the air flows and circulated around the rooms and outdoor areas.
Relaxing and familiar interiors help residents to remain calm, peaceful and relaxed at all times.
Makesh went on to say that one of the most frustrating shortcomings found in modern nursing facilities and care homes for the elderly is that they create serious conflicts with unnatural environments and schedules.
These nursing care facilities try to fix the problems by directing antipsychotic and anti-anxiety medications at their patients. The patients actually feel as if the world has totally given up on them. That they no longer gain the engagement their brain needs to thrive.
No Cure Yet for Alzhiemers and Dementia
Nevertheless Makesh’s patient care project for building amazing nursing homes clearly shows that when we operate more strategically about changing the environment then change is possible. That when we focus on helping people relearn basic self-care and personal hygiene skills, then actually the near-impossible becomes reality.
“In five years, we’re going to [be able to] rehabilitate our patients to where they can live independently in our bespoke environments,” he said. “In 10 years, we’re going to be able to send them back to live peacefully at home.”
Jean Makesh is more than aware that it’s a big and ambitious goal. Of course whether he’ll meet it remains to be established. Yet in the meantime, he’s able to own one of the few places in the world that offers something pretty rare in cases of alzhiemers disease and severe dementia: That being hope.