Dementia design
Designing for dignity: transforming dementia care at HC-One
Professor Graham Stokes, HC-One’s director of dementia & specialist service innovation, outlines the provider’s model for dementia care, and explains why the care sector must rethink what ‘dementia friendly’ design really means
The way we design care homes for people living with dementia has remained largely unchanged for decades. Many care environments still rely on outdated design principles developed pre-2000, with features that no longer meet the standard required for exemplary dementia care. Today, residents are entering care
homes with more advanced dementia than ever before. The cognitive and physical impairments they live with are more complex, and the support they need is more intensive. The number of people living in care homes expected to increase by 166 per cent to 667,000 by 2040, with 80 per cent of those living with severe dementia. To address this rising challenge, the
sector needs to rethink what ‘dementia friendly’ design really means. At HC-One,
our commitment to this spans across all homes – for example many have undergone refurbishments incorporating carefully considered, low-arousal design, and our generation of new-build care homes are purpose-built, designed with current and future care needs in mind. Our Specialist Dementia Care
Communities (SDCCs) are exemplars of our approach – pushing boundaries and setting new standards for dementia care. New models of care like this are greatly needed – ones that pioneer an innovative approach which replace overstimulation with calm, confusion with clarity, and institutional design with homeliness. As the needs of those living with dementia
continues to outpace our ageing design and care models, we must identify honestly
our current shortfalls and implement new and innovative practices that are designed specifically to support those with dementia and build a more sustainable future for the sector.
Outdated design with overstimulation built in Many care homes still feature bold colours, busy murals, and signage-heavy corridors, which were once considered helpful but are now increasingly ineffective and even counterproductive. Signage, symbols, and colour-coded doors
were introduced in the 1980s and 1990s to help residents navigate their environment and stimulate memory, based on the idea that people with dementia could benefit from visual cues to compensate for memory
October 2025
www.thecarehomeenvironment.com 37
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