Inside the Alzheimer’s care centre where it’s always the 1950s | Psyche Videos

Town Square recreates the Americana of the 1950s and early ’60s with touches like a vintage diner, a theatre screening classic films, period-appropriate shopfronts and much more. However, the facility in Chula Vista, California isn’t an attraction for nostalgia-seeking tourists, but an adult daycare centre for people with Alzheimer’s and dementia. The ambitious project is the brainchild of Scott Tarde, the CEO of Glenner Alzheimer’s Centers. As Tarde explains in this documentary, the ‘small city inside a warehouse’ was built around the principles of reminiscence therapy, which seeks to immerse those with dementia in a more familiar past rather than constantly making them readjust to a confusing and uncomfortable present. The US director Josh Izenberg documents Town Square throughout its construction and opening in 2018, when its philosophy was put to the test. He also gains intimate access to the families who used the facility in its early days. Crafted with skill and empathy, his film captures the potential of reminiscence therapy to reduce suffering while remaining honest about the immense difficulties Alzheimer’s presents for both patients and caregivers.
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