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The functionality, well-being, and quality of life of people living with dementia can be positively impacted by careful environmental design. As a consequence of the COVID-19 outbreak, sudden rearrangements were made in the social and physical environment of dementia care residents. The present study aimed to explore the lessons learned regarding the design and use of the built environment during the COVID-19 lockdown and to find how the built environment might contribute positively to improved well-being, and social and physical connection of dementia care residents in the future. In a mixed-method explorative study, social-physical aspects of the built environment that influence quality of life during the COVID-19 pandemic were explored. In general, buildings with a spacious layout and flexible use of spaces contribute to a higher quality of life and level of resident well-being, improved infection control, greater resilience, and enhances social and physical contact. Currently, the buildings of many care facilities are not designed to accommodate a severely infectious disease outbreak. Additionally, nursing staff have learned the importance of attending to the number of stimuli in the social and built environment and attuning these to individual, instead of group needs. Our findings indicate there is a need for designing and building spacious long-term dementia care facilities that allow for flexible, social and personalized appropriation of spaces.

For the person living with dementia the moments to experience true affection may not occur very frequently. Deterioration of cognitive and physical abilities may eventually force people to live in an unfamiliar environment, like a residential age care facility. The inevitable absence of (deceased) relatives and friends can dramatically undermine the opportunities to touch and be touched resulting in touch deprivation and fewer opportunities for emotional attachment. The affective presence of pets can encourage social touch, bring emotional and social connection, stimulate reminiscence and promote feelings of well-being for the person living with dementia. Due to practical constraints as well as physical decline, elderly often (need to) abandon the wish to take care of an animal. It has been suggested that animal-like robot companions could provide an elegant solution to enhance person-centered care, notably without replacing human contact. In this qualitative study, we endeavor to explore the potential psychosocial health benefits offered by robotic animal companions. We report on insights obtained from two qualitative studies, deploying two different robotic animals in contrasting environments, timespans and circumstances. In the first study, we investigate responses of people with dementia towards a living dog versus a robotic companion in a care home setting. The second study, a longitudinal case study, investigates the psychosocial effects of a single individual with Alzheimer's disease bonding with a robotic pet. Our results suggest that the use of animal like robotic companions can be beneficial, and can significantly enrich the social and emotional life of people living with dementia.

Incidences of age-related diseases such as dementia are increasing. Attention is shifting to living well with dementia, and how non-pharmacological interventions such as technology can play an important role to support this. However, there are still many challenges ahead. Technology is often devised without a full consideration of the target user group, or a thorough understanding of the context in which it is to operate. Furthermore, technology presents endless possibilities that can guide or impact decisions users make. In this chapter we discuss five, so-called, technology temptations. These are habits that are assumed to occur in technology development. It suggests that technology is omnipresent, often screen-focused, equipped with sensors everywhere, presumes “natural” interaction works and is often over-integrated. To counteract these “temptations” we propose technology development that includes people with dementia in the process, is easy to use by them and takes their experience as leading. Warm Technology respects this particular user group and their specific needs for improving their well-being and quality of life. To showcase Warm Technology, we illustrate three cases. Especially for people living with dementia Warm Technology shows potential for a new chapter in technology design.

We present a demonstration of the board game named “Babbelbord” that stimulates narrative reminiscence in a novel interactive, personalized and entertaining way for people with dementia. Narrative reminiscence is part of reminiscence therapy which is often used in dementia care as it reduces neuropsychiatric symptoms, and therefore improves the quality of life for people with dementia. Stimulating narrative reminiscence entails communicating personal memories with others without intent or evaluation. The Babbelbord game is a newly developed board game that was based on an old-fashioned game that is familiar to people with dementia. The purpose of the Babbelbord game is to reconnect older adults with dementia to their relatives and friends by stimulating narrative reminiscence with a personalized game question approach. The Babbelbord game provides interactive and entertaining conversation starters in a gamified way between people with dementia and their relatives. In this paper, we describe and demonstrate how the Babbelbord was designed to offer an engaging and gamified user experience, tailored for older adults affected by dementia.

This paper explores how we can design personalised auditory experiences for people with dementia (PwD). We introduce a new product design called the SoundscapePillow. The SoundscapePillow is a long tubular shape changing pillow that enables personalised auditory experiences for PwD by listening to (nature) soundscapes. The built-in sound system produces these soundscapes to empower the PwD to relax, to reduce agitation, and to remember experiences from the past. In combination with an accompanying App the experience can be personalised for the PwD. The concept was put in practice by conducting two small scale explorative user tests with a prototype of the concept. This paper discusses the insights gained from the design process of the SoundscapePillow, the concept itself, and what future work is needed.

People with dementia often face problems during eating activities, due to the loss of physical and cognitive functioning. With an increasing amount of research suggesting how everyday sounds can have beneficial effects for people with dementia, we raise the question whether everyday sounds related to eating can improve dining experiences in care facilities. To explore this, we deployed an interactive placemat during the eating activities of people with dementia. Observations and interviews gave insight into the interactions with the placemat, how these interactions offered distractions and the general atmosphere during eating activities. We encourage design-researchers to explore how sound-based interventions promote good eating behaviors, but an understanding of how people with dementia engage with sound and other sensory stimuli is needed in order for these interventions to be successful.

Design and research studies regarding the impact of music on the wellbeing of people living with advanced dementia are ongoing. Many of these focus on reminiscence and the use of familiar songs, music and instruments. However, fewer studies have explored the creative and improvisational aspects of music making with people living with advanced dementia. This project explored the response of people from this group to an innovative gestural electronic instrument—The AirSticks™. The engagement promoted creative musical improvisation and resulted in a highly emotive response from one particular participant, suggesting the creative impulse can be retained.

Multiple researchers and designers have attempted to involve people with dementia in the design research process. This paper tackles the relevance of doing so. It discusses how society can benefit from involvement of people with dementia in the design process. In addition, it looks at how people with dementia experience such involvement (and how relevant it is to them). The paper consists of theoretical reflections complemented with experiences from a case study and an educational module on design and dementia. The paper ends with providing concrete suggestions on how to increase relevance using the agonistic qualities of design and the way participation in design can help to meet unmet needs of people with dementia.

Designing for seniors with dementia is a difficult task, because they are more dependent on the design of the building in order to perform activities of daily life (ADL). The Empathic Design Framework with the four phases (explore, translate, elaborate, and validate) makes it possible to design a suitable building for this target group. Using this framework, developed and translated design principles need to be implemented and tested in order to validate an architectural intervention which stimulates ADL. In the case study presented in this paper, three methods were used to validate the architectural intervention of door decals: performance-based orientation task (M1), fly-on-the-wall observation (M2), and questionnaire-based interview (M3). This paper presents the evaluation of these three methods in order to discover which method or methods suit best the purpose of validating an architectural intervention. In this study, multiple variables were tested; however, it was not possible to test each variable with every method. Based on this case study, we recommend to choose the application of the methods according to the to be tested variables and the type of behavior that needs to be measured: M1 and M2 are more suitable for the measurement of real behavior change of the target group; while M3 suits well if opinions and the level of acceptance need to be measured.

In this paper, we describe Warm Technology as a new approach to designing technology for and with people living with dementia. It is based on a positive psychological view of elderhood and dementia. We strive to developing technological systems and applications that are person-centred, smart yet uncomplicated and user-friendly, with a focus on a person's abilities, needs and ambitions. In the paper we describe our general vision and approach, and highlight three design examples to exemplify our approach.