In the living room at Arbor Place one recent afternoon, a gentleman in a plaid shirt dipped into a romantic embrace with a regal woman wearing a full skirt, her hair tucked into a ballerina's bun. Others held their partners' hands and bobbed to the beat of Latin jazz. Some of those in wheelchairs hand-danced. When the song ended, everyone laughed and hugged.

What may be most remarkable is that the 15 residents of Arbor Place Assisted Living in Rockville have Alzheimer's disease.

"When I first came, I had so much fun here," says Stephanie Waldron, daughter of the stately woman on the dance floor. Visits to other facilities offering dementia care had left Waldron "desperate," she says.

But when she visited Arbor Place, she says, "the residents had me in stitches playing a gambling game. When I left here, I felt happy."