In Holland People With Dementia Can Work on a Farm
On Dutch ‘care farms’ aging folks tend to livestock, harvest vegetables and make their own decisions.
“We don’t focus on what’s missing, but what is still left,” says Arjan Monteny, cofounder of Boerderij Op Aarde, “what is still possible to develop in everybody.”
Common to many people with dementia is a desire to not only participate in society, but contribute to it.
Hassink says that even institutional care facilities could replicate some of these benefits by incorporating elements common to care farms into their programs. Instead of a fitness class, for instance, they could offer more productive activities that build in movement. Institutions could also empower their attendees with more opportunities to decide which activities they’d like to do.
“I think the realization that people still like to do useful things, useful work, and to be valued and contribute is really important,” he says.
Before Kees Oranje’s mother started coming to Boerderij Op Aarde in 2018, she was largely isolated, he says, living alone in the family’s farmhouse a few kilometers from the nearest village. Oranje noticed she seemed to “bounce back” after she started at the farm when she was 77. He believes part of what makes her days fulfilling is that, just like in life, they involve activities that inspire a range of emotional responses: frustration, joy, surprise, even anger.
“What the person needs is not only care,” Oranje says. “A person needs emotions, too.”
March 7, 2022
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