The Dementia-Friendly Home App

This is a tablet app that recommends practical changes carers can make in the home to assist the person living with dementia.

The app, from Dementia Australia Vic, uses interactive 3D game technology to simulate a home environment and offers prompts with ideas for making the space more accessible to someone with dementia. Users navigate around the virtual home and can tap on rooms and objects in the home to find out why certain designs or decorations might cause problems, and suitable alternatives.

Many of the app suggestions are small, inexpensive ideas, such as placing labels with pictures on cupboard doors. More significant changes include installing motion sensors that turn lights on and off when people walk through the house and changing busily patterned wall or floor coverings.

The app is based on the 10 Dementia Enabling Environment Principles developed by Professor Richard Fleming and Kirsty Bennett at the University of Wollongong (http://www.enablingenvironments.com.au/principles.html).

The Dementia-Friendly Home app is available from the App Store and the Google Play store for $2.99. Details: https://vic.fightdementia.org.au/vic/about-dementia-and-memory-loss/resources/resources-to-download/dementia-friendly-home-app

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Tags

• aged care
• ajdc
• apps
• dementia
• dementia-friendly
• dementia-friendly environments
• wayfinding

Image credit: screenshot from app, copyright vic.fightdementia.org.au