Improving housing decisions for and with people with dementia: A co-design approach

When it comes time to make housing decisions suitable for people with dementia, most people with dementia or caregivers are unaware of housing options. Further, these decisions are only sometimes discussed in advance, which leads to decisions being made in response to an incident or crisis. Decisions should reflect preferences around location, levels of care, distance from familiar settings, or family ties. When suitable housing is identified, this is not a guaranteed option where facilities are frequently fully occupied and have extensive waiting lists. This situation often means that the available housing options are not identified as ‘suitable’ by the person with dementia or their family members, which adds to the complexity of the decision-making process. This chapter describes a co-design research project which explored housing decision-making from the perspectives of the different stakeholders, including people with dementia, informal caregivers, volunteers and professionals in dementia policy and care. Through the design process, (1) input from stakeholders was synthesized to create problem scenarios and opportunity statements, and (2) opportunity statements were combined with other research knowledge to create problem scenarios. From there, eight prototypes were identified and tested with professionals in dementia care and policy. Two prototypes (a board game and a personal booklet) were chosen as suitable solutions to improve communication and choice related to housing decisions for and with people with dementia.