Digital imaging: its current and future influence upon the creative practice of textile and surface pattern design

Digital imaging: its current and future influence upon the creative practice of textile and surface pattern desig

Design for Dementia Care: Making a Difference

The paper discusses the growing role of design in dementia care and its power to enhance the wellbeing of people living with dementia, their carers and caregivers. It refers to three examples of recent design research focusing on creating environments, objects and technologies to support appropriate person-centred stimulation and activities in dementia care. The projects use interdisciplinary co-design approaches and ethnographic methods to establish new knowledge and develop user-centred design solutions to improve care. The authors debate that engaging end-users in the design process not only empowers the designer; the collaborative approach enables in particular the carer / caregiver to reflect on their important task and to mobilise their creativity

In the moment: designing for late stage dementia

This paper presents international multidisciplinary design research to support the wellbeing of people living with dementia. The LAUGH project aims to develop playful artefacts that will contribute to non-pharmacological personalised approaches to caring for people living with late stage dementia in residential care. This paper presents the context for this research and explains the initial stages of the work currently in progress. An inclusive participatory methodology is described in which key experts including: health professionals, technologists, materials scientists and carers of people living with dementia are informing the development of design concepts. A positive design approach in which designing for pleasure, personal significance and virtue underpin the work. The initial stages of the research have identified the significance of: playfulness, sensory stimulation, hand use and emotional memory. This paper contends that designs should aim to promote ‘in the moment’ living in order to support subjective wellbeing of people living with late stage dementia

LAUGH: Designing to enhance positive emotion for people living with dementia

Dementia comprises a number of degenerative neurological diseases. It is a complex condition and each person’s experience and symptoms are different. There is a growing awareness of the need for well-designed products and services to assist with dementia care and to enhance wellbeing. This paper presents research investigating the design of playful objects for people with late stage dementia. The investigation described is a preliminary stage in the LAUGH (Ludic Artefacts Using Gesture and Haptics) project; an AHRC funded international, interdisciplinary design research project. People living with dementia, informal and professional carers, health professionals, art therapists, charity representatives, arts practitioners and designers are informing the research through a series of expert group participatory workshops and case study interviews. Observation, discussion, video, photography and investigation. Findings presented in this paper focus on the importance of emotional memory and emotional expression in the care of people with late stage dementia; the value of sensory triggers and props to stimulate emotional remembering; and the importance of designing to promote high quality social connections

Designing for wellbeing in late stage dementia

This paper presents research that is developing new ways of supporting the wellbeing of people with late stage dementia through the development of playful objects. The LAUGH project is an international AHRC funded design research project that is using qualitative and participatory approaches to inform innovative concepts for new playful artefacts to stimulate fun, joy and in the moment pleasure for people living with dementia. The research is partnered by Gwalia Cyf and supported by Age Cymru and Alzheimer’s Society, including people living with dementia from their Service User Review Panels (SURP). Data presented is informed by three pre-design development workshops in which a multidisciplinary group of experts in the fields of dementia care and design have contributed their professional experience. This paper specifically focuses on data from the third of these workshops exploring procedural memory in relation to hand-use and craft making. This paper contends that hand-use, gesture and haptic sensibilities can provide access to procedural and emotional memories, which are retained even into the late stages of the disease. Craft and making activities learned in earlier life, provide rhythmic patterns of hand activity that can enhance wellbeing by supporting in the moment sensory experience, competency and reaffirmation of personhood. Playful activities provide a person with dementia freedom to explore, learn and have positive experiences even when cognitive function and memory recall is severely impaired. Future planned workshops will see the iterative development of prototype designs and their evaluation in ‘live labs’ with people living with late stage dementia

Design for dementia: Making spaces for uncertainty

This paper presents research undertaken as part of the LAUGH project to explore design processes and design of hand held playful objects for people living with advanced dementia. A series of six co-design workshops were carried out with experts in relationto dementia and design. This paper reports on a workshop with designers that enabled them to draw on their experience and training in design, provided creative opportunities to reflect on their personal values, and challenged preconceptions about designing for dementia care

Introducing a designing attitude in dementia care

This paper discusses how design can enhance the wellbeing of people living with dementia, their carers and caregivers. It refers to two examples of recent design research that focus on supporting the provision and facilitation of appropriate activities and environments for individuals with advanced dementia in residential care. The projects use interdisciplinary co-design approaches and ethnographic methods to establish new knowledge and develop user-centred design solutions to improve care. Questioning how to REDO design research to create a sustainable impact on the lives of those affected by dementia, the paper concludes that active involvement and continued participation of users, carers and care practitioners in the design process is essential. Training on design skills and making will enable carers to adapt a designing attitude. Exploring how such training can be delivered is a chance for the design community, in collaboration with experts from health care, to take the lead in solving this problem

Sensory enrichment for people living with dementia: increasing the benefits of multisensory environments in dementia care through design

Recent research has investigated the impact of design on providing multisensory experience for people with dementia living in care homes, particularly the quality of multisensory environments (MSEs). This interdisciplinary research evolved from a broad consideration of the role of design in dementia care enhancing the wellbeing of people living with dementia and their carers. Previous research suggests that using MSE in dementia care as a resource for meaningful engagement has beneficial effects and many MSEs have been installed in UK care homes. However, evidence indicates that these spaces often fail to benefit the residents causing staff becoming discouraged and subsequently the room becoming unused. A study investigating the current facilitation of MSE in sixteen UK care homes revealed two key issues: (1) set-up and design of existing MSEs in care environments is, in most cases, not suitable for older people; (2) there is a lack of knowledge and information for care practitioners for facilitating sensory activities and environments. Based on these findings, design criteria improving usability and accessibility for people with dementia were established and user-centred design recommendations developed. As a first step towards closing the knowledge gap amongst healthcare practitioners in providing multisensory experience, initial design guidelines were published as an online resource

The Lancaster Care Charter

In the fall of 1991 the Munich Design Charter was published in Design Issues. This charter was written as a design-led “call to arms” on the future nations and boundaries of Europe. The signatories of the Munich Design Charter saw the problem of Europe, at that time, as fundamentally a problem of form that should draw on the creativity and expertise of design. Likewise, the Does Design Care…? workshop held at Imagination, Lancaster University in the autumn of 2017 brought together a multidisciplinary group of people from 16 nations across 5 continents, who, at a critical moment in design discourse saw a problem with the future of Care. The Lancaster Care Charter has been written in response to the vital question “Does Design Care…?” and via a series of conversations, stimulated by a range of presentations that explored a range of provocations, insights, and more questions, provides answers for the contemporary context of Care. With nation and boundary now erased by the flow of Capital the Charter aims to address the complex and urgent challenges for Care as both the future possible and the responsibility of design. The Lancaster Care Charter presents a collective vision and sets out new pragmatic encounters for the design of Care and the care of Design