Living With Dementia
If you have dementia making a dementia friendly home should be paramount, living at home can give you more independence. By making slight modifications to your home, you can continue to enjoy it, and keep up routines and activities that are familiar to you. These changes can help you to stay safe, physically active, mentally stimulated and in touch with friends and family.
Lighting
Good lighting helps you see clearly and make sense of where you are. You may find that you need a lot more light as you get older to be able to see properly. Dementia can make it harder to keep track of time and to understand where you are in your home. This is why it’s important to allow natural light in through clean windows, and for your home to be well lit.
Furniture and furnishings
Dementia may make you feel disorientated or confused about what you are seeing. Colour and pattern can make a big difference to how easily you can find your way around your home. Using bright and contrasting colours for furniture and furnishings can help you to see things more easily. Contrast the colours of furniture, including beds, tables, chairs and lamps with the walls and floor, so they stand out to you. Stripes or strong patterns can be confusing and disorientating, so simplify these where you can.
Flooring
You should be able to move safely and easily around your home, without the risk of trips or falls. It’s very easy to trip over uneven floors or mats. Changes in the colour of the floor from room to room, rugs and dark floor mats can all be confusing. Dementia can change how you see things. Shiny floors can look wet or slippery, speckles in carpets or tiles may look like litter, and dark coloured rugs or flooring can look like holes in the floor. You’ll be able to walk more confidently and safely over plain matt flooring. The colour of the floor, particularly on stairs, should contrast with the walls, so you can clearly see where you are going.
Bathroom
Not being able to find the toilet when you need it can make you feel anxious. The toilet seat and lid should be in a contrasting colour to the rest of the toilet, so they are easier to see. You could also remove the lid to make the seat and bowl easier to see. If you need grab rails to help you get on and off the toilet, and in and out of the bath or shower, make them a different colour to the walls. This will make them easier to find. Traditional-style or lever taps that are marked hot and cold, and a traditional toilet flush are more obvious, and easy to use. Basin, bath and shower fixtures should be easy to control and use. You can use flood prevention plugs which release water down the drain if a bath is left running for too long. Some change colour if the bath is too hot, to prevent scalding.
Understanding Where Things Are
If you have memory problems, you may forget where you keep things. Putting pictures or labels on the outside of cupboards, wardrobes and drawers can help with this. They can also help you make sense of your home. Transparent cupboard doors or open shelves will make it easier for you to find things. Try to organise your cupboards so that items and appliances that you regularly use are to the front or are easy to find. Think about removing cupboard doors which hide white goods, such as washing machines. It’s important that you know where the things you use every day are, and that you can find them easily.
Safe Environment
Feeling safe and confident in your home is very important. If you live alone, it’s especially important to put in measures to keep yourself safe. There are different types of grab rails, alarms and sensors, including smoke detectors, that can be installed to help you stay safe.
Enjoying the outdoors Being able to see and get outside throughout the year can improve your wellbeing. Gardening or enjoying nature can be very therapeutic. Make sure you can see the outside through your windows. Not only can this allow you to sit and watch what’s happening outside, it can also help you to dress for the weather before leaving.
Further Guidance
You can find further guidance on making your home Dementia safe by contacting Alzheimers Society or if you have any concerns about Alzheimers disease by visiting alzheimers.org.uk or call 03331503456
