A ‘dementia-friendly’ environment is argued to compensate for disability and should consider both the importance for the person with dementia of his/her experiences within the environment and also the social, physical, and organizational environments that impact on these experiences.
The objectives of this study are to report on the views of people with dementia who live in care homes and their family caregivers on aspects of design that are important to them. The views should then be discussed in relation to developing physical care environments that respond to the wishes of people with dementia and their family caregivers.
Six focus groups were held: two in Northern Ireland and four in Scotland. A total of 40 people participated in the focus groups. Twenty-nine people were with dementia (24 female and five male), and 11 were family carers (10 female and one male). Focus groups recordings were fully transcribed. A thematic analysis process was conducted.
Caregivers discussed the features of a building they took into account when selecting a care home, and discussed this in relation to ‘bricks and mortar versus people.’ Key themes reported by people with dementia and their family caregivers included how the space in the environment is used, for example, what happens in the building, and the presence or absence of certain design features. Outside space and way-finding aids were identified as positive features of the home, along with a general lack of concern about ensuite provision.
The authors noted that they used a purposive approach when selecting homes to conduct the focus groups to ensure purpose-built and converted buildings were included from different care sectors (private, voluntary, and statutory) in different geographical locations. It is possible, therefore, that different issues could have been raised in different homes and with different residents. This therefore
limits the generalizability of our data, a common limitation of small-scale qualitative research.