Dementia Friendly Home | A²I² Artificial Intelligence at Deakin

Challenge

Educating carers about how changes around the house can enable people with dementia to continue to live at home.

Impact

An interactive app that introduces dementia enabling environment principles within the home context.

Research Partners

Dementia Australia

Weblinks

Living with dementia can be unsettling, even in your own home.

Dementia Australia recently estimated there are 425,416 Australians living with dementia, with roughly 70 per cent living within the community.

While dementia can cause spatial and visual challenges that make everyday life difficult, a majority of people are only aware of memory related symptoms. For example, something as seemingly simple as a carpet with repeating patterns can cause visual illusions such as holes and steps that don’t exist.

This limited understanding means families and carers are often unprepared for just how much life can change when their loved ones are diagnosed with dementia.

“Changes in the brain can impact on day to day functions and potentially confuse people living with dementia. Identifying ways the home and environment can be modified to ameliorate any challenges will make a difference to the person living with dementia.” Maree McCabe – CEO, Dementia Australia

Solution

The Dementia-Friendly Home app is an interactive experience that aims to teach carers about simple changes around the home that can improve quality of life for people living with dementia.

Users are able explore a virtual home while being provided with suggestions to improve the home based on the ten Dementia Enabling Environment Principles.

As the user interacts with various items they have the option to view how different scenarios can positively or negatively affect a person living at home with dementia. This allows them to experience and understand the impact these changes can have on people living with dementia.

Suggestions range from inexpensive ideas, like placing labels with pictures on cupboards, to more significant changes such as replacing overstimulating floor and wall coverings.

Download the app