Group-living care: an alternative for the demented elderly.

Group-living (GL) care as an alternative to traditional long-term care for elderly demented people is rapidly proliferating across Sweden. In engineering the psychosocial and physical environment according to the competence and needs of moderately and moderately to severely demented patients, therapeutic effects on symptoms can be achieved during a period of the dementing process. The background, implementation and outcome of a concept of GL care developed for patients suffering from dementia of Alzheimer type (DAT), vascular dementia (VD) and mixed DAT and VD is presented as is the role of GL in the total dementia care of a community.