The big question about dementia care is who is going to do it

IN A TWO-STOREY building in a suburb of Tokyo, eight old people are sitting around tables in a spotless living room with a kitchenette attached. They are enjoying a quiz game, which entails shouting out the word that completes a well-known phrase or saying. One woman is first to all the answers, with nobody else getting a look-in. But, say staff at this care home, one of 280 run by Nichi Gakkan, a medical-services company, she forgets what happened ten minutes ago. The residents’ spartan rooms, with just a few keepsakes from home, have their photographs on the door, to make it easier to go to bed in the right one.