Designing for dementia: examining design-led approaches and innovations

This paper examines a wide range of design-led methods and outcomes found in contemporary design and dementia projects in the UK and elsewhere. The paper presents an overview of United Kingdom Research and Innovation (UKRI) funding for design and dementia projects funded over a ten year period (2015 to 2025) and 18 design-led projects from researchers based all over the world. These projects describe original work each highlighting the significant aims, approaches, results, and outputs that design-led research projects are delivering in a wide range of dementia health and social care contexts. Because dementia currently has no cure, there is a real need for carefully designed interventions including innovative products, services, spaces, and systems that enable people to live as well as possible with dementia. This chapter shines a light on what and how various forms of design research can do for people living with dementia highlighting the increasing number of design researchers working in dementia-related contexts. This includes design researchers from a wide range of design disciplines working with people living with dementia, their formal and informal carers, and their family members. Moreover, many of the design-led projects included in this chapter are undertaken in collaboration with researchers in other disciplines such as nursing, occupational therapy, sociology, computer science. and others highlighting the range of design research for change interventions in dementia care, and the essential role these interventions play.