What is a dementia village?

Intro Speaker:  

Hello, and welcome to Matters Beyond Wealth with your host, Leanne Kaufman, president and CEO of RBC Royal Trust. For most of us, talking about subjects like aging, late life, and estate planning isn’t easy. That’s why we’re going to help get the conversation started on this podcast while benefiting from the insights and expertise of some of the country’s top experts. We want to bring you information today that will help to protect you and your family in the future. Now, here’s your host, Leanne.

Leanne Kaufman:

As the population ages, there is growing pressure on families and society in general to determine where and how our senior members will live. A number of innovative living arrangements are beginning to emerge beyond the traditional retirement home or long-term care facility. Think of The Golden Girls from 1980s TV, where older adults embraced shared living arrangements for companionship and a sense of belonging. Or the newer naturally occurring retirement communities, NORCs, where aging residents maintain independence while benefiting from community support.

For dementia patients, the situation is even more complicated, but new options continue to develop specifically with that kind of community in mind. In 2009, the world’s first dementia village opened in the Netherlands. The concept was to create an environment just like the word describes, a village, only self-contained and completely safe for people needing more support. These fully enclosed villages have restaurants, cafes, shops, gardens and outdoors spaces so residents are able to carry out day-to-day activities and lead a largely normal life, but with 24/7 monitoring, to ensure high levels of care that the residents require.

Hello, I’m Leanne Kaufman and welcome to RBC Wealth Management Canada’s Matters Beyond Wealth. With me today is Elroy Jespersen, a founder of the first dementia village in Canada. Elroy shifted careers from community recreation to working in seniors’ care as a general manager, with what is now Verve Senior Living. He was involved in the development of numerous senior living communities throughout Western Canada. As his own retirement approached, a close family member developed dementia and could no longer live alone. Elroy knew something needed to be done to help those needing more support to live more fulfilling and thriving lives.

Modeled after living arrangements in the Netherlands and other parts of the world, Elroy was a founder in the first dementia village community in Canada, Village Langley in Langley, BC. This community is built around the concept of empowering residents to feel at home to make their own choices and thrive within their communities.

Elroy, thanks for being here with me today to discuss these innovative retirement communities and why this matters beyond wealth.

Elroy Jespersen:

Leanne, thank you for having me. It’s a pleasure to be here.

Leanne Kaufman:

Maybe we can start by having you describe in a little greater detail than I provided what we mean by the phrase, “dementia village.”

Elroy Jespersen:

Sure. Currently, as far as I know, we’re the only dementia village in Canada so I’ll describe what we have at the Village Langley. Our village is a purpose-built community designed to support people living with dementia to help them live their own best life despite any limitations that they might be living with.

At the village, we have five separate houses, each having a private bedroom for 12 or 13 villagers. All houses contain shared living spaces like a living room, a dining room, kitchen, activity and a large sunroom.

The houses are all connected to each other by our pedestrian only Main Street. At the front of our village is our two-story community center, which is our gathering place for the villagers, their friends, their families and the local neighborhood. The community center contains a bistro and coffee shop, activity spaces, meeting rooms, a hair salon, a workshop and a small store. There’s a single point of entry into the village through the staff reception area in the community center, so we know who is coming and going throughout the day.

At the back of the village is our farm, with accessible vegetable and flower gardens, and a red barn, which is home for our two pygmy goats, Blackberry and Milo, as well as eight chickens. Our village is home to 75 villagers, with most having moderate to severe dementia.

Leanne Kaufman:

Wow. It sounds quite idyllic, and as you said, totally new and novel in Canada. How did your journey make you think that this is something that could be accomplished in Canada the way it was in the Netherlands?

Elroy Jespersen:

I’d spent the last 25 years developing and operating senior living communities across Western Canada, with Verve Senior Living. Although for the most part, these were places that older adults lived quite well, and I noticed that many people living with dementia were having a more difficult time living in our memory care or special care units. Many felt confined living in a small, secure space with limited access to outdoors and to nature.

At the same time, I was learning about the dementia village you mentioned in the Netherlands, and the greenhouse or small house model in the United States. I believed that if I could combine the greenhouse model with the dementia village concept, and put it on a large enough space where people could roam freely, connect with others and nature, and be in control of their day-to-day life with the support of the same dementia trained staff in each house, it would be a place where I and others would want to live if we could no longer live independently, rather than a place where we felt we had to live.

Fortunately, we were able to purchase an unused elementary school, and we had both the financial resources and development experience to make the village happen.

Leanne Kaufman:

That’s amazing. You’ve mentioned independence, and I know there’s a social aspect of course to these communities, given all the common space you’ve talked about. Can you expand more on that and why both being social and independent, in your experience from your previous life of retirement communities as well, is so important for dementia patients, these two components?

Elroy Jespersen:

At the village, our goal is to provide what we call an enriched living experience for each of our villagers. This means that we must, first of all, get to know each person very well. Then once we know them, help them stay connected to things and people that matter to them. We also need to have each villager live both safe and secure and feel that they’re in control of their day. That means things like when they rise and eat breakfast, where they go, what they do and with whom. These are things that matter to everyone. When our autonomy is restricted and we are confined to a space where we don’t want to be, it’s only natural to become frustrated and agitated. Having a village where people can roam free, doing what they enjoy with people who they enjoy being around, is a normal and natural way to live, and being able to do it in nature is just an added bonus.

Leanne Kaufman:

Yeah. The weather and climate in Langley probably helps a little bit, too.

Elroy Jespersen:

Not a lot of snow shoveling.

Leanne Kaufman:

Yeah. Yeah, definitely an advantage compared to some other parts of the country, for sure.

Now, I know that memory care residences can be particularly pricey when we’re looking at the spectrum of retirement home or senior living options. Can you give us a sense of—with ranges—what does this type of specialized dementia community cost, maybe in comparison to what a more traditional, maybe less secure retirement residence may look like?

Elroy Jespersen:

Sure. Canada is a big country, so therefore the cost of living in a retirement home can vary significantly depending on where you live in Canada. For example, in a large urban area, retirement homes usually are more expensive than in a smaller, more rural community.

In BC and in Metro Vancouver, where the Village Langley is located, living in a memory care unit in a retirement home might start around $6,000 to $7,000 per month. At the Village Langley, we start at around $9,000. In a typical retirement home, your stay is determined by the amount of care you require, and when it increases, you might need to move to a long-term care facility or to a nursing home. At the Village, two of our houses are licensed as long-term care, and if and when someone requires that level of support, they can relocate to one of those houses when space becomes available. Because the Village Langley has no operational funding from any government, each person must pay for their own care, which in our two long-term care houses, could be as high as $13,000 a month.

Leanne Kaufman:

But it definitely sounds like it’s a very different experience than some of what we might more traditionally think of as memory care capabilities in some of the more, I’ll call them institutional type settings.

The number of Canadians we know suffering from dementia or living with dementia is really set to expand almost exponentially in Canada in the coming decades, if there isn’t some sort of medical advancement. How, in your opinion, do we as a society reconcile this growing need for wonderful resources and environments like you have helped to build with the flip side, the lack of accessibility for most of the general public, both from a cost and availability perspective? I know it’s a big question, but you’ve got a lot of experience in this.

Elroy Jespersen:

I’ll give it a shot. I think most provincial governments in Canada, especially after COVID, have identified the need that more long-term spaces in their province is needed. Most have allocated many millions of dollars to build and operate these spaces. Unfortunately, in my opinion, for the most part, they continue to build more of what they already have. Places where people have to live, and where very few want to live.

Our purpose in building and operating the Village was to demonstrate that there is a better way to support people living with dementia, and as well as others, to live their own best life despite their limitations. We’ve demonstrated that there is a better way. Now in my opinion, what is needed is for people, communities and governments to join together to build homes in their communities that better support people who no longer can live independently. If and when that happens, these new places may be where people want to live and for a lower cost. All that is required is the courage to think, do and be different.

Leanne Kaufman:

Yeah. Wonderful, wise words. Thank you. If you hope our listeners who’ve joined us today could just remember one thing from your experience, both in your past and present lives, what would that one thing be?

Elroy Jespersen:

I think what I’d have them take away is that having been given a diagnosis of dementia does not mean that a person’s life is over and they can’t live a normal, fulfilling life. Having the right place to live, being supported by the right people in the right way, and being in control of your day-to-day living can help make it happen because there is a better way and the villagers in Langley are experiencing it.

Leanne Kaufman:

That’s wonderful. That’s really, really nice to hear.

Well, thank you so much, Elroy, for joining me today to have this conversation on these alternatives to the traditional retirement residence and why all of this matters beyond wealth.

Elroy Jespersen:

Thank you for having me and I always appreciate the opportunity to share our experiences at the Village.

Leanne Kaufman:

You can find out more about Elroy on LinkedIn. If you’ve enjoyed this episode and you’d like to help support the podcast, please share it with others, post about it on social media, or leave a rating and a review. Until next time, I’m Leanne Kaufman. Thank you for joining us.

Outro speaker:

Whether you are planning for your own estate, the needs of your family or business, or you are an executor for a loved one’s estate, we can help guide you, simplify the complex, and support your life’s vision. Partner with RBC Royal Trust and ensure your legacy will thrive for generations to come. Leave a legacy, not a burden™. Visit rbc.com/royaltrust.

Thank you for joining us on this episode of Matters Beyond Wealth. If you would like more information about RBC Royal Trust, please visit our website at rbc.com/royaltrust.