The Lantern of Chagrin Valley, located in Chagrin Falls, Ohio is only one of three amazing facilities designed specifically for Alzheimer’s and dementia patients.
Designed to look like small houses with porches leading out to a golf course, the living facility feels like a community in the 1940s. With incredible attention to detail, including paint schemes reminiscent of the time period, Lantern is an incredibly unique living facility.
Using special fiber optics in the ceiling, the facility recreates a special daylight and starry sky atmosphere in the building.
The floors of the facility are painted green to represent the grass, and an array of sound effects such as bird chirps are played throughout.
“Every little thing you see, the wall color, the paint, actually has a therapeutic benefit, a therapeutic value,” CEO Jean Makesh told the News-Herald. As a trained occupational therapist, Makesh has created the perfect environment for these special patients.
After learning how controlled environments can lead to major reductions in anxiety, anger, and depression, he decided to create a facility that incorporated these ideas into a constructive living experience.
Moreover, Lantern provides residents with an assortment of daily classes to help they re-learn and retain basic skills and functions.
“I take them back to those memories. I create a time capsule. It enables them to embrace everything around them,” Makesh told reporters.
Makesh hopes that his contributions in rehabilitation for these patients afflicted with Alzheimer’s and dementia will produce a large amount of positive change.
Using this controlled setting, Makesh believes he will be able to slow the progression of similar diseases on a long term scale.
With this incredible facility that recreates the feel and experiences these special patients may have once lived, Makesh is bringing new hope to challenging age-related disease.
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