The Truman Show

'What if everything you knew to be true turned out to be a lie?'

Such was the question that the movie The Truman Show posed. In the film, the main character lives in a completely fabricated reality. Everything from the relationships he shares to the experiences he has are elaborately scripted and engineered products intended to please a watching television audience. Truman's entire life is lived inside the bubble of a giant dome which houses his "town." His friends, his family, even his wife are all actors, paid to play their part. Ultimately, this ruse is revealed to be nothing more than a cruel ploy to produce a television show. But what if the intentions behind a hoax were more honorable?

In the Netherlands, they have sought to answer that question.

In 2009, Hogeweyk, or Dementiaville as it has become known, opened its doors in the town of Weesp in the Netherlands. A first of its kind Alzheimer's housing concept, Dementiaville creates a world that closely resembles reality but keeps Alzheimer's and dementia patients safe. From the outside, Dementiaville looks like an ordinary town. There are shops, streets, salons, and even restaurants all designed to fabricate a normal life experience. Yet it is a fully enclosed and secure environment for the residents inside.

The living quarters within the village are designed to cater and feel completely normal to persons coming from a wide range of backgrounds. Each apartment is meticulously decorated in specific genres and is occupied by 6-8 persons including plainclothes caretakers who pass as normal residents of the village. A person of means would live in an upscale or "Goois" genre apartment thus making the transition from their authentic lives more amenable. When the resident of that apartment began to need assistance in certain areas of daily life, one of their roommates would be willing to lend a hand. Little would the resident know that their assistance would actually be coming from a qualified caregiver posing as a roommate in order to stave off any appearance of an abnormal existence.

The statistics regarding Alzheimer's and dementia are as staggering as they are tragic. While there are occasionally reports of some new wanderdrug or miracle cure on the horizon, reality for families currently dealing with this tragedy is that there is very little that can be done. Hogeweyk changes that reality. Families are now free to consider a whole new world of possibilities for the people they care most about. It may be a completely fabricated existence but to the residents of Dementiaville, it is home.