Design for Dementia - Helen Hamlyn Centre - Royal College of Art

BEDROOM
PERSONALISATION
Personalisation is an expression of self.
The ability to personalise one’s immediate
environment can have invaluable impact
on the life of a resident. It can help provide
fundamental cues to their identity. Objects
and images with personal meaning can
provide valuable reminiscence tools for
staff, friends and family members to use to
communicate with residents – and can also
act to separate the resident’s personal space
from the communal environment outside. An
environment that is personalised with loved
possessions and photographs – and thus
unique to a person in care – can alleviate fears
born out of confusion and help a resident feel
safer and more at ease.
Change and dementia do not mix well
together. Major changes in a care resident’s
life, routine and environment can cause a lot
of stress and some new residents moving from
their own home to care are known to exhibit
an initial noticeable decline in abilities.
A recent arrival into care was witnessed
in a frightened state telling a carer, ‘I shouldn’t
be here, I shouldn’t be here’. This person didn’t
know where they were or why they were there.
Simple interventions such as a few pictures
on the wall of this individual and her family,
a favourite lamp or a wardrobe full of familiar
clothes could have provided cues to alleviate
her fears.
Personalisation of the environment can
reduce anxiety for those moving into care,
either autonomously or with the prompting of
carers, and demonstrate good care practice in
really understanding the resident. Ownership
of personal space can help achieve that all
important and sometime elusive feeling
of pride. A personalised room helps create
communication tools for those residents
who can no longer verbally communicate
in the way they once did about their lives to
friends, family, carers and other residents.
It can also help provide a visual boundary
between private and communal space, beyond
the signifier of an internal door that is often
left open.
The contemporary personalisation of
private spaces within care varies a great deal.
Most care providers are happy to let families
redecorate a room to a resident’s personal
tastes. However lack of money, time or local
family means that this opportunity is rarely
utilised; in most cases, only a few pictures,
personal items or favourite pieces of furniture
are brought in. When these personal items
are removed from the context of a home and
combined with standard care items such as
well-used care beds and bedroom furniture,
much of the personal value can be lost in
the space.
While there is much innovation in new
architectural developments for people with
dementia, most new care homes are retrofits.
New facilities are being built in old hospitals
or existing care homes, which have not been
designed to cater for the needs of people
with dementia. To be cost effective when retrofitting
means using as much of what
already exists as possible, and changing
features and architecture can often be seen
as an expensive exercise when the benefits
are not truly understood.
Personalisation in an existing bedroom
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