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Last updated:

April 8, 2022

Duration:

6 months

FREE

This course includes:

6 months

Badge on Completion

Certificate of completion

6 months

Description

The lives of people with dementia can be improved by careful consideration of key features of the design of the spaces in which they live. This free course, Designing space for dementia care, provides examples of how good design can transform their lives and mitigate the symptoms of dementia.

Introduction

In this course, you explore how the environment impacts on the experience of health and social care, and in particular how the built environment affects the sense of orientation for people with dementia. You begin by considering how easy it is for most people to feel lost in a strange environment and the techniques that are used in public spaces to help people to find their way. You use a series of activities to engage with some of these techniques and learn about those that might be particularly helpful to people with dementia. The free course includes examples of care homes for people with dementia that demonstrate principles of good design, which can help people to maintain their independence for as long as possible and improve their quality of life. While most people with dementia live in domestic households (79 percent), this reduces to 36 percent for people over the age of 85 years (Fleming and Purandare, 2010). Much of the focus in designing spaces for health and social care is on larger settings such as hospitals and care homes, but the principles apply equally to domestic settings. This focus on space provides an example of one non-medical element of care that impacts on the experience of living with dementia. Arguably, medical approaches to dementia dominate how it is framed and responses to it. But there are many other aspects of care that can improve the quality of life for people with dementia and their carers that receive less attention and less funding. We have chosen design as one example that locates the solution outside the individual level. Taking a broader perspective is also useful because the principles associated with the way that society is organized can limit the quality of life for people with disabilities.

Course learning outcomes

After completing this course, you should be able to:
  • Understand the ways in which society can disable people
  • Discuss how the design of space can be an important aspect of caring for someone with dementia
  • Identify the key features of the design that mitigate the symptoms of dementia.

Course Curriculum

    • The experience of disorientation 03:00:00
    • Disabled people or disabling society? 04:00:00
    • Conclusion 01:00:00

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Open University UK