The role of interior design in promoting a sense of home in people with dementia living in care facilities

Abstract

With the introduction of the person-centred dementia care model, the interior design of care facilities has increasingly emphasised the need to make people with dementia (PWD) feel at home. The sense of home can improve the quality of life after relocating to long-term care facilities. However, the effectiveness of the current design approach is debatable because it ignores the intrinsic meaning of home. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to propose a new design approach to interior design that brings a sense of home to PWDs through the intrinsic meaning of home. It first defines the intrinsic meaning of home as an ‘intimate relationship’ between people and space, and then proposes a hypothesis that PWDs can re-establish this relationship through bodily habits. The ethnographic case studies verified it and explained how the interior environment influences it. Finally, based on the previous findings, this research develops the design framework and design guidelines.

Keywords:

• People with dementia
• sense of home
• long-term care facility
• interior design
• bodily habits

Acknowledgements

The author thank my supervisor Prof. Dr Alessandro Biamonti and co-supervisor Dr Silvia Maria Gramegna from Politecnico di Milano. This research is funded by China Scholarship Council.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Figure 1. The process of the research.

Figure 2. The conclusion of desk research phase.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jing Chen

Jing Chen is a PhD student in Politecnico di Milano, Department of Design. She is a member of the Laboratory of Innovation and Research on Interiors (LAB.I.R.INT) in Politecnico di Milano.