The doors of the closed department for elderly people with dementia are increasingly being opened by residential care center Molentstaete in Breda. The aim is to introduce them to the local residents. Together they work on a vegetable garden in the neighborhood. “We have hidden them away for too long,” says welfare worker Corrie Kerstens.
The sun is shining peacefully on the small vegetable garden next to the closed department of Molenstaete this Thursday morning. Mieke has a watering can in her hand and beams from ear to ear. “I love it,” she says. “I’m always locked up here and now I can leave the ward. Do you know that I used to often work in the garden?”
Local resident Peter watches with satisfaction how Mieke waters the plants. And gives her a clue every now and then: “Don’t forget the strawberry plants!”
Peter is one of the local residents who invests a lot of energy in the newly landscaped vegetable garden that the neighborhood has created together with the residential care center. “The demented residents sometimes follow me for days when I’m working here,” he says. “And just chat.”
“We want to deal differently with residents with dementia.”
It is a good example of how the vegetable garden helps to bring people with dementia into contact with the other residents of the Pels Rijckpark. An idea that Molenstaete residential care center has taken up together with students from Avans University of Applied Sciences.
“We want to deal differently with residents with dementia,” says Corrie Kerstens, welfare officer at Surplus Molenstaete. “Demented people are also full-fledged people. We would like to see them go outside more and participate in society. They should be able to enjoy themselves. Let them be happy! Look at the people and not at the system. It requires a completely different approach, but we they’ve been tucked away for too long.”
“We already had a knitting afternoon and they do sports together.”
Anyone who has ever had to take someone to a closed ward knows how hard and difficult this can be. Corrie may be a bit ideological, but she thinks it should be more humane. Moreover, the Long-Term Care Act prescribes this. “Clients in a closed department can go out more often under good supervision,” she says.
“They simply have the right to more freedom of movement. Of course there must be a safe environment and we work on that with the neighborhood. We bring people together and seek connection by doing fun activities. We have already had a knitting afternoon and they play sports together .”
“Life is a lot more fun this way.”
The residential care center also has contact with a nearby school, but for now the seniors in the flats around the corner are an excellent first test. This becomes clear again when Peter and Mieke put a raspberry plant in the ground and local resident Dieny arrives. “It’s very boring around here,” says Dieny. “I think it’s very nice that I can now have a chat with the people from the closed department.”
According to Nora van Dam, who participated in the project as a student at Avans University of Applied Sciences, everyone is very motivated. “Life is a lot more fun this way. Even though some may have forgotten it after two days,” she notes with a chuckle.
