2023-06-06 07:01:17
In the Netherlands, concepts such as ‘dementia-friendly neighbourhoods’ and ‘living circles’ – which offer people with dementia freedom of movement – are already well known. With the advent of the Care & Pressure Act gradually evolving to another stage of development. For the time being, however, many nursing homes still have closed wards. This transition from a safe care environment to ‘living in safe freedom’ calls for a review and redesign of our care delivery process.
Support people with dementia
Social, spatial and technological aspects play an important role in this. The development of technologies that support people with dementia in their self-reliance is moving at lightning speed. Various domains are working on solutions that offer a balance between the freedom and safety of people with dementia and thus reduce the pressure of care for care providers and informal carers.
Some technologies in this area are already being applied. For example, a ‘tag’, combined with a GPS tracker, that determines where a (nursing home) resident may go. This solution sends a signal when people leave the designated area, so that they can be picked up. This often concerns free walking in the own (group) home, courtyard, common areas / restaurant of the residential care environment and in some cases a piece in the neighborhood.
Preventing involuntary care
But in order to effectuate the rights of people with dementia as residents of the neighborhood and to combat ‘involuntary care’, an integrated approach is needed in various residential zones (Figure 1). The largest zone – the neighborhood – has no fixed boundaries and is the most difficult to monitor.
Deel Academy sees ’empathetic and caring’ neighborhoods as an integral solution. Researchers and students from Eindhoven University of Technology have collected practical examples and devised solutions to design these neighborhoods in a senior and care-friendly manner. These solutions can be controlling in nature, or ‘entice’ seniors with dementia to a more active lifestyle.
- Your own (group) home.
- Courtyard.
- Common areas/restaurant of the residential care environment.
- The district.
The result: no closed doors and high fences, but an open network of streets and squares – bordered by a ‘digital fence’ – that protects and supports people with dementia. This monitoring and stimulating social-technological system, a symbiosis of AI and sensor technology, supports the spatial design and is a social force that guides people with dementia in the neighbourhood.
As part of the ZonMw project EQUAL (2018-2022), in collaboration with partners from SHARE (including Livinglab project ‘SLIMme district Waalre’) held various multidisciplinary workshops. During these workshops, barriers, benefits and preconditions were discussed with professionals from (elderly) care, housing, municipal policy, technology, (spatial) design. Design solutions for Smart and Caring Neighborhoods that aim to stimulate the freedom of movement of seniors with dementia are based on the results of these workshops, best-practice studies and graduation research by Master’s students of Architecture at Eindhoven University of Technology.
Read the complete article in ICT&health edition no. 3, which will be published from 16 June.
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