Is it The Truman Showfoall of us?

Is the potential destination for all of us? A version of The_Truman_Show^WP?

Quote:

In a Dutch town about 20 kilometres outside of Amsterdam, a small community lives in what at first glance seems like a real-life version of The Truman Show. Hogewey has a grocery store, a theatre and a barber shop. The only twist is that many of its 152 residents live unaware that their orderly community is actually a nursing home for people with severe dementia. "We protect our residents from the unsafe world. They do not understand the world outside this because the outside world doesn't understand them," says Yvonne van Amerongen, an employee at Hogewey who also helped develop the concept.

Do people with dementia need to know the "Truth"?

Quote:

While certain health-care professionals see Hogewey as the future of dementia care, others criticize it for being dishonest. Some aspects of Hogewey seem "fantastic," says Julian Hughes, the deputy chair of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics in London, England, which studies ethical issues in biology and medicine and advises policy makers. It's worrisome when a village or aspects of it are deliberately deceitful, says Hughes, who was part of a working group for Nuffield's 2009 report on ethical issues in dementia, including truth-telling.

I have had the experience of telling one relative in a nursing home that another close relative had died and the nursing home staff were horrified that I considered not to. I still have not resolved in my own mind the difference in psychological pain from doing so . . . or not doing so. :confused:

Any comments or insights?

via International Skeptics Forum http://ift.tt/1GVPAGl