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...

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...

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...