Dementia Design Forum

It can be dementia 24/7 at our home. If neither of us is working on something dementia related, there's a good chance we're still thinking about it. This weekend was no exception: On Sunday morning we had a mad couple of hours recycling some pointless picture frames from my partners care home and turning them into something far more interesting. Incidentally, the taller frames are just under 1M high.  It's especially important to try and utilise things like this at the moment because it's harder than ever for care home operators to prioritise funds for anything other than essentials - which I understand, however much I may disagree with it as a way forward. So this Sunday we ripped the crummy pointless artwork out of these old frames and for a total cost of less than £10, we created something interesting and relevant for almost nothing more than some thought and some effort. The best thing is we know 100% these will now bring some benefit to the residents of the home. #...

Photography: Andrea Piacquadio & Jonas Mohamadi Memory is an incredible thing when you stop and think about how it works and how much stuff we can recall at some indeterminate point in the future, and what triggers attach to that memory. One question you might consider is: why do we need to remember so much? Wouldn’t it make sense to have a relatively short, uncluttered memory so we can function more efficiently? If I was a computer hard drive maybe that would make sense because I might run short of storage space. But the capacity for memory in the human brain is far far greater than any computer that's been built so far. For the record, referencing Dr Magnus Bordewich from the department of computer sciences at Durham University, here are some calculations which illustrate how stupendously powerful our brains are; 1. Sitting still doing nothing, your brain will still process more data in 30 seconds than the Hubble telescope has in 30 years. 2. A single cubic millimetre...

Photo by Luiz Medeiros For th e last 13 years I’ve spent mo st of my time and effort designing products to support people living with dementi a, and one of the first things I learnt was how changes in visual perception are critically influential. My initial dementia-design challe nge was creating internal signs that were highly visible and easier to interpret for people who live with dementia. Essentially I created two types: signs for toilets and bathrooms, and signs that enable people to identify their own room. My d esigns have been used all around the world and there are literally millions of examples whi ch observe this design – the difference tends to be the quality of materials and execution but they all follow the same visual construct. Working with the signage took me all over the place and I met some brilliant people, literally. One particularly brilliant University professor in Scotland was responsible for my reminiscence epiphany! The first time we met we talked for may...

Part 1: Are you missing an opportunity?  Unfortunately the answer is almost certainly 'yes'. It surprises me to think I’ve been involved in professional imaging for over 30 years, but at least that means I should know a thing or two about Visual Imaging or ‘Pictures’ as we usually refer to them. One thing I realised a long time ago is how quickly they can become invisible. Not in the Harry Potter sense of course, but in the sense that we can become oblivious to their presence and they effectively vanish.  Think for a moment; you will have pictures in your daily surroundings that you simply don’t notice any more. Pictures you see every day but no longer register their presence.   On the other hand you may also have pictures you always notice, and these are the ones which are interesting for some reason or another. Chances are they’ll always attract your attention because you have a connection with them. In the dementia care setting there is a colossal opportun...

                                   Personalised signage has inevitably been my pet subject for many years!  I'm re-posting this blog from The Care Home Designer website because it's such a clean, honest product that does exactly what it should.  Watch the video here or visit the original post: https://bit.ly/2CEPlYI It's amusing that potential customers don't realise the sign can be personalised and updated so easily yet the result is professional and looks permanent.  The ease with which the user can ensure the right information is always on display is tackled with an engaging short video that's well worth 1 minute and 59 seconds of anyones time if they're considering using personalised signage. There are five other layouts in the range so should be something there to suit everyone.  I think shipping to the US is also an option too. Apologies for the long break between posts! I...

I discovered an American blog today called Dementia By Day that belongs to a Dementia Care Consultant: Rebecca Wonderlin. I've put a link to her site in my Blogroll and I wanted to share this list she wrote a couple of years ago. It doesn't strictly relate to design but it struck me as being very well worded an straighforward, not to mention very appropriate. I think it speaks well for most of us. If I get dementia, I’d like my family to hang this wish list up on the wall where I live; 1. If I get dementia, I want my friends and family to embrace my reality. If I think my spouse is still alive, or if I think we’re visiting my parents for dinner, let me believe those things. I’ll be much happier for it. 2. If I get dementia, I don’t want to be treated like a child. Talk to me like the adult that I am. 3. If I get dementia, I still want to enjoy the things that I’ve always enjoyed. Help me find a way to exercise, read, and visit with friends. 4. If I get dementia, ask me to tell ...

When it comes to the environment it is the most influential and the most overlooked asset any care home has.  That’s not to say there aren’t some really good examples such as the #Sunrise property in Edgbaston. Great team, great philosophy, great building, and the management has followed through within the home and at senior level. I’ve worked there recently myself and there’s a mind-set of constant improvement at this home.  If there’s a downside, homes like this charge a premium. But that’s the point, this type of care home environment is only available at a premium. It shouldn’t and needn’t be that way.  Stimulating and appropriate environments can be made available in every home. In every home there are opportunities to use the available space to reinforce the locality (sense of place) and reflect the profile of the population to create an engaging and relevant environment.  May I strenuously point out at this juncture that this need not be an expensive exerc...

Colour and the Psychology of Colour Part 2 The other day we were discussing publishing something as ‘Part 1’ or ‘First Edition’ and how often Part 2 never seems to materialise, newsletters being the most common example! Well guess what, here we are with Part 2 of my post on colour, dementia and how they relate. “Where’s your evidence?” In the early days I was right out on a limb and presenting my designs to Hospitals and Care Homes around the country (and occasionally abroad) and I was often challenged with this question. It was   a fair question and I became fairly adept at dealing with it. The problem was always that I had to say I didn’t have any evidence to support the effectiveness of the signs. Instead I would refer to research about colour and text etc in relation to people with dementia and explain how the products had been designed to accommodate the findings. It seemed to work in most situations, and it was good fun too. I’ve always enjoyed being challen...

Where is the emotional support for carers? Photo by jigsawstocker As the media pesters the government prematurely about their end-game for this life changing tragedy, what’s the outlook for carers who have lived with this? Those on the frontline selflessly living amongst it literally 24/7 to maintain care and reduce risk to people within and without the home? Hearing my partner, a care home manager, unable to begin to describe her day because it’s too distressing, says so much to me about the gravity of the situation. She is one tough cookie with 30 years experience and a consummate professional. If she’s finding it overwhelming, the stress and difficulty of being the person responsible for a home is clearly off the scale. The awful reality is, many care homes have become insular communities filled with stress, fear and death. Occupancy levels will recover quickly, but what about the psychological and emotional stain this experience will leave on these workers? Those who’v...

Colour and the psychology of colour. Part 1 ‘Back in the day’ as they say, when I was a complete ignoramus where dementia was concerned, I was challenged to design signage that would be effective for people with dementia. Without regurgitating previous content from my grand tally of two posts to date, I did my homework to discover what issues people will typically have when experiencing the cognitive influences of a dementia. From this I created a ‘hit list’ of issues to tackle and designed-in elements to specifically address each of these issues. If it sounds methodical, it was, and it was logical rather than scientific. I needed to know what the issues were more than the science behind them and this was what I felt I needed to effect a succesful design. To recap, the design features are: Colour Image content Shape Material Text Contrast  Durability I intend to discuss all these in due course but for this post I’m focusing on the subject of colour and dem...

Photo by Jcomp How on earth did I get here? Something we all ask ourselves in a reflective moment, and whilst we’re currently in the Virus lockdown scenario there’s probably quite a lot of reflecting going on. I certainly know how my involvement with dementia design came, about but I didn’t understand how involved I was until I’d been involved for a while! Probably doesn’t make much sense but allow me to explain.  Early 2007, my company was Bupa’s nominated signage provider and a chap called Steve Bradshaw posed the question ‘can you design bedroom signs for our residents with dementia?’   Steve was an estates manager with Bupa and I’d worked with Steve for a couple of years at this point. As a supplier of graphic display products to a number national retailers we were accustomed to unusual requests. To keep clients happy at this level it was always a case of: ‘the answer’s yes, what’s the question?’ So the answer was always going to be ‘yes’ before...

Strange times indeed! It is an odd coincidence I'm creating this on the 26th anniversary of a very significant day because on this day in April 1994 I started my own business. But today will be memorable in it's own right, not because I've started a blog of course, but because we're currently in lockdown in our fight to defeat the Corona virus or Covid 19 as it's also called.  In the last few weeks this has replaced Brexit as the subject dominating all forms of media outlet in the UK, but this time it is quite literally a global issue. This may seem distinctly uninteresting if you're reading this today for the reason I've just mentioned - Covid 19 IS the news subject of the moment. It's everywhere. But it seems right to record this as it's so significant and because it is probably the reason I've managed to get around to setting this up. But also because when anyone reads this in the future, even if it's only me, it will act a...