This 12-seat cafe in Sengawa, a suburb in western Tokyo, hires elderly people with dementia to work as servers once a month. A former owner of the cafe has a parent with dementia, and the new owner agreed to let them rent out the space each month as a “dementia cafe.” The organizers now work with the local government to get connected to dementia patients in the area.
It’s a safe space where they can interact with new people, be productive and feel needed — key to slowing down the progression of dementia, a neurodegenerative disease that has no cure.
Read more at the Washington Post.