Inside the Easton Home, there's a kitchen unlike anywhere in Easton, filled with a monitor top refrigerator, Ovaltine cans, and tins of spices you won't find at Giant.
In fact, you probably wouldn't find a kitchen like this anywhere, at least not without a time machine.
But that's exactly what the staff at the Easton Home want it to be: a window into the past for residents suffering from Alzheimer's or dementia.
Of the home's 53 residents, 20 live in its memory support unit for residents with Alzheimers' and other forms of dementia, said Paul Cercone, the home's administrator. Another third of The Easton Home's population have been diagnosed with some type of dementia.
With that in mind, the Easton Home has established its Memory Lane project, filling the building with areas designed to evoke old memories in its residents. There is artwork on the wall featuring important events, like weddings or vacations or even World War II.
(The last one can be tricky, Cercone admits.)
"Rather than just art on the wall, it's interactive," Cercone said, walking through the home earlier this week.
While Alzheimer's eats away at short term memory, residents who have the disease can still have strong long term memories. Having photos of things like a wedding can help stimulate those memories, Cercone said, and help families communicate with their loved ones.
As such, there are questions and prompts on the walls near the photos: Tell me about your wedding, or What was it like on the home front during the war?
There are rooms designed to look like old living room, kitchens, even a general store, all filled with vintage furniture and knick-knacks, culled from e-Bay or local thrift shops. It took two years to piece this all together, Cercone said.
In another room, there's a large mural showing a scenic countryside. Residents had input, Cercone said, telling the artist "Put a train through the mountains," or "There should be sheep there."
The farm isn't a real place, but details about it can seem familiar.
"Any place you have is something that can spark a memory," said Cercone.
And it's not just the decorations. When residents come in, the home also creates a more personalized biography.
"You almost create a scrapbook of their life history," Cercone said.
Reminiscing can be benefitial to people with dementia, Claire Day, vice president of constituent services for the Alzheimer's Association Delaware Valley Chapter, told the Courier-Post newspaper last year.
She said music can be a powerful tool in helping bring back old memories, describing two patients who hadn't spoken in months being able to sing every word of the song "You Are My Sunshine" upon hearing it.
At the Easton Home, residents hear a long ago soundtrack all day long. It's coming from a 1940s radio, although the home has hollowed it out.
Inside, an iPod plays 1940s music on an endless loop.
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