Whether you opt for residential care, or the best home care service Worthing has to offer, navigating the effects of dementia on a loved one can be a difficult time. However, as with all illnesses, the more we learn about it the more we can do to help mitigate the effects on day to day living, and that’s certainly the case with this project created by Loughborough University and the BRE Group.
Together, using scientific research, they’ve created ‘the dementia house’ – a space that has been specially designed to make life easier for people with dementia.
Professor Eef Hogervorst, who leads the project for Loughborough University, explained that with care fees taking their toll on our finances, especially as people with dementia are living longer than ever before, the project has been developed to help them live at home for longer.
One such element, based on research, is that lighter carpets have been chosen, as dark carpets can be perceived by dementia as holes, according to the BBC, which poses a risk to the patient, affecting how they traverse a space. Paint colours have also been chosen to be reading but also stimulate better vision. “People find it difficult to navigate a space if it’s all white or all one colour,” explains Professor Hogervorst. “So we have a contrast between the walls, the skirting boards and the floors.”
The house has also been designed with all the plug point high up on the wall, helping patients who may forget where they are when they want to operate electronics. Where dementia can sometimes cause a sufferer to forget words, simple changes like having taps with red and blue handles removes any issue that may occur if they were to forget what hot and cold mean.
Automated technology also plays a role in this house of the future for people with dementia. When it gets too hot inside, the windows automatically open to ventilate the space,
Though a harder element to implement in a pre-existing home, if you’re considering what kind of space works best, this home as been specifically designed as open-plan, with the hope that this will minimise the feeling of disorientation. “By creating these lines of sight,” explains Professor Hogervorst, “you make it easy to navigate without having to get around features of the house.” Lots of natural light is also important as with dementia, the circadian rhythm, which is our 24 hour day rhythm that helps us to sleep and wake up, is affected, and people with dementia can become agitated, especially when the sun goes down.
However, it even boils down to some really simple touches, such as ensuring the space is filled with personal photographs, which help to stimulate the memory.
With dementia, everybody is different, so what works for one home may have no use in another, but it’s in everyone’s best interests to be able to live safely and freely for as long as possible, and using some of the methodology of this concept is relatively easy within an everyday home.