Purpose In
order to facilitate ageing-in-place (AiP) with dementia, a digital consultancy tool (DCT) was designed
to facilitate modifications to the home environment. In the Netherlands, about 65% of the 270,000
older adults with dementia live in their own dwelling. At the same time, 40% of the Dutch housing
stock is not appropriate for older adults to live independently1
. Admission to a nursing home is usually
caused by stress and a straining of the family carers. Caring for a person with dementia requires
constant vigilance. Although admission to a nursing home cannot always be avoided, admission
may be postponed by modifying the dwelling and through the use of technology. At present, persons
with dementia are not able to adjust their dwelling to suit their needs. Therefore, it is important that
carers and installers have access to information on how to design a dwelling in a dementia-friendly
way. Method Based on publications about housing facilities2
, thermal comfort3 and dementiafriendly
space plan4
, the design for a DCT for AiP was made. The design of the DCT will be discussed
in focus group sessions in Alzheimer Cafés with persons with dementia and their family carers.
First, sessions will be held about the requirements for the web tool for dementia-friendly design.
After gathering the requirements and verification to (inter)national guidelines concerning the accessibility
of webpages, focus group sessions will be held with user groups in order to test the usability
of the preliminary DCT. Results & Discussion Results of this process are a webpage with descriptions
of how to create a dementia-friendly dwelling for AiP with dementia. On the webpage dementia-friendly
modifications of the living environment will be ordered by problem/function or space.
Problems are categorized by (I)ADL tasks, behaviour, or cognitive problems. Adjustments of spaces
are categorized by the combined model of WHO’s ICF and the Model of Integrated Building Design3,5.