Personalization and Compassionate Design

How can designers and technologists navigate the complex ethical issues that are involved in designing for people living with dementia? How is it possible to design appropriately and with sensitivity so that a person’s dignity and sense of self can be retained even when the person can no longer remember who they are? How can successful design solutions be created when the user can no longer communicate verbally and is unable to relate to the world around them? This chapter will propose that Compassionate Design provides a useful way forward. This approach prioritizes personalization, sensory stimulation and designing to maintain connections between people and the world around them. By keeping the person living with dementia at the very heart of the design process, understanding their lived experiences and personal histories, it is possible to create appropriate, meaningful and useful solutions to assist in dementia care. Person centred and relational approaches to care provide the context for this chapter and the importance of including dementia ‘experts by experience’ in the design process is explained.

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