SENSE-SENSITIVE DESIGN


Inclusive design for those living with dementia


Shaz Hawkins, Segment Marketing manager UK, Healthcare and Education, at Tarkett, explains how ‘empathy-led design’ can improve medical and social care environments for people with dementia.


Dementia has been described as one of the most significant health crises of the 21st century, with the number of people affected in the UK set to rise to 2.1 million by 2050. Globally, dementia affects around 50 million people, and this number will almost double every 20 years, reaching 131.5 million by 2050. In the absence of a cure, and with an ageing population, that trend is likely to continue for decades to come. Right now, in the UK, roughly a quarter of hospital beds at any one time are taken by people with dementia. Yet 77% of people who care for someone with dementia say that they are dissatisfied with the quality of care provided.


We need to do better. That doesn’t just mean searching for a cure, or developing new drugs to treat people; we need to design medical and social care environments that take into account our knowledge of how people with dementia behave and see the world.


Spaces to explore


Those living with dementia often feel a strong urge to wander about, which can cause problems if they become disorientated and forget where they are. Nurses list ‘wandering’ as one of their top five most challenging problems when caring for people with dementia. However, it is possible to design spaces in a way that works with this urge, rather than trying to subdue it. There is an increasing trend for units and care homes to be designed with a focal point that gives the wandering resident the sense that they’re going somewhere. This could be an area with resources like books and a television, or it could simply be a communal area that encourages socialising. The key point is that the space feels different from the space they’ve just left, and offers some kind of stimulation.


Combating disorientation ‘Signposting’ is a powerful tool for dealing with possible disorientation during wandering. Think about leaving your car in a large car park; it’s easy to find the station or shopping centre from your car because you can see it, but finding your car again is a trickier task that requires memory and


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Dementia has been described as one of the most significant health crises of the 21st century, with the number of people affected in the UK set to rise to 2.1 million by 2050.


navigation skills. People with dementia can get lost even in very familiar environments, so they need a lot of visual cues. Simple, well-lit, and easy-to-read signs help them get around and feel more relaxed as they do so. Recognisable objects also help people with dementia to orientate themselves.


Being and feeling safe


It’s obviously essential for any space used by vulnerable people to be safe, but to encourage people to stay mobile, you also need to think about their perception of safety. Someone designing the flooring for a care home would probably think about factors such as the evenness of surfaces, wheelchair access, and avoiding trip hazards such as clutter or rugs. However, a person with dementia might still view a perfectly level, clear floor as a hazard, and refuse to step onto it. Why? Tarkett’s extensive research into how people with dementia view their surroundings has found that colour contrasts are much more important than most of us realise. People with dementia tend to have trouble with three-dimensional vision, which means


There is an increasing trend for units and care homes to be designed with a focal point that gives the wandering resident the sense that they’re going somewhere


that they use changes in colour to fill in the spatial cues they’re missing. (Think about how artists use colour to create the illusion of depth or distance in a two-dimensional painting.) A contrast in colour on a floor could be perceived as a change in depth, making the floor seem uneven and unsafe to walk on.


Likewise, if colour contrasts are missing from your design, the person with dementia will miss important information. For example, if a door is painted the same colour as surrounding walls, they may not notice the door at all, and may not be able to leave the room unaided.


It’s hard to understand how someone could miss a door that’s right in front of


OCTOBER 2020 | THE NETWORK


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