Diakonie St. Martin wants to renovate, convert and operate the former children's health clinic in Gossen - as a major "Dementia Competence Center - Future with Vision" project.

According to current plans, funding for the necessary investment of at least a seven-figure sum is to come from the so-called coal funds, the structural fund. The very complex application is to be submitted this fall.

In future, people with dementia will be cared for and accommodated in the so-called new building of the spa clinic: "We want to offer day care, short-term care, respite care and residential groups for people with dementia," outlines Weinert-Swoboda. She currently assumes that 70 to 80 places could be created here for dementia patients. The new building and the huge garden in particular are a huge plus for the care of precisely these people: Dementia patients of all ages - from those in their mid-fifties to centenarians - sometimes have a great urge to exercise, which they can live out in the garden. The sports hall and swimming pool in the new building also provide an ideal complement to therapy.

The future use of the old building has not yet been fully planned. There are a number of ideas - from physiotherapy and additional therapy sports rooms to renting out the vault for a computer center - and there have even already been expressions of interest.

One of them would also be very fitting thematically: Diakonie is in talks with Andreas Hoff, Professor of Social Gerontology at the Zittau/Görlitz University of Applied Sciences and Director of the GAT Institute, for a special project: "We want to set up a room in which digital aids for older people can be provided and also tested," explains Katrin Weinert-Swoboda. This involves, for example, sophisticated systems that can send a call for help even if the person is no longer able to act.

Source: Sächsische Zeitung