The Dementia Design Enabling Project (DEEP) has created a suite of initiatives to inform, educate and support the adoption of enabling environments for people with dementia living in the community or in residential aged care. An enabling environment is one that supports a person with dementia to maintain a sense of meaning and importance, to express their wishes, maintain social contacts and take pleasure in aspects of daily life.
The project, led by Alzheimer’s Australia WA, has bought together a national team of experts to address a ‘knowledge to translation’ gap that exists in the area of enabling environments and their impact on people living with dementia.
There is growing evidence that creating enabling environments to support people living with dementia can improve their wellbeing and reduce behaviours of concern.
Components of the enabling environment included in this project are the built environment, interior design and outdoor environments (gardens) applied to home and care settings. The DEEP interactive website was launched in August and dementia design workshops have commenced.
DEEP is funded through an Alzheimer’s Australia Quality Dementia Care Initiative grant. Click here to go to the interactive DEEP website.
