Beyond Façade. Home making and Truthfulness in Dementia Care

In this chapter the authors investigate home-making practices for people with dementia in residential care that make use of objects or material environments. Many of these objects or environments have aspects of make-believe. Responding to concerns raised about the growing use of these objects as ‘environmental lies’ or mere ‘façade’ building, the authors discuss what truthful home making could mean. They distinguish two ways of being truthful, connected with two strategies of using objects. In the first strategy, called home-scaping, care tries to closely copy the formerly lived environments of residents. Truth in this case means correspondence with realities as lived outside residential care. The second strategy, home-playing, aims at attuning to residents and to newly emerging truths, here and now, in mutual play. The authors argue that, while both strategies have their value, home-scaping can and must learn from home-playing where it needs to be embedded in ongoing care practices.