In August of 2018, the first visitors to Town Square® arrived at their purpose-built ‘reminiscence therapy’ scene. This 1950’s replica town square, located in a suburb of San Diego, California, is part of the treatment which eldercare specialists say has “…positive effects on mood, cognition and communication level of dementia patients”. Reminiscence therapy utitlises context and objects to encourage participants to trade stories and reminisce, and focuses specifically on the life-phase which dementia and alzheimer’s patients generally focus on – their adolescence. The town setting imitates the 1950s as it corresponds to the adolescence of current 70 and 80 year old patients.
