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  I want to raise awareness of a superb, Dementia Care podcast that is readily available here or from wherever you go for your podcasts. Created by the exceptional Lauren Mahakian, each podcast explores the spectrum of dementia and dementia care in practical, down-to-earth terms. The content is made very accessible in a way that will educate and support carers, friends and family, whatever their perspective may be. There’s a back-catalogue of thought provoking editions going back to 2019 which shares knowledge and demonstrates what is possible when you have the dedication and courage to think outside the box.

Colour and the psychology of colour Part 2

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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 challenged
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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 dementi