My waiter had dementia and forgot my order.
I visited a cafe in Japan that ONLY hires people with Dementia. It's called the Cafe Of Mistaken Orders.
Sometimes the servers bring you the wrong food, never bring your order, or sit down and join you instead.
But the point of this cafe is to be a place for dementia patients to feel needed and have purpose.
And this cafe is working. Japan has discovered that being socially connected actually slows down the progression of dementia.
So now there are 8,000 dementia cafes all over Japan!
The U.S. should be more like Japan. We should keep elders out of nursing homes, find ways to give them purpose, and part of society until their last days.