This edited volume addresses the environments that exacerbate, exclude, and stigmatise those living with dementia to explore designs and processes that can optimise well-being and independence.

Featuring the voices and opinions of people with dementia, the chapters showcase individual homes, special dementia facilities, different forms of care homes, and public spaces, from landscape to urbanism, as examples of how to meet the needs and preferences for those living with dementia now. As a response to a recent Cochrane meta-analysis (2022) which highlighted the problems associated with using traditional, medically orientated evaluative methods for environmental design, this book demonstrates a range of research methods that can be used to inform and investigate good co-design of dementia-enabling environments. Furthermore, the book addresses cultural differences in people’s needs and illustrates past, ongoing, and novel initiatives worldwide.

Ultimately, this timely volume focuses on person-centred design that enables empowerment, quality of life, health, and citizenship in people living with dementia. It will be of value to researchers, scholars, and postgraduate students studying gerontology, dementia specifically, and those involved with architecture and the built environment for societal benefit more broadly.

Everyday life in rural places can be hampered by many different infrastructural challenges for which technology is often considered a panacea. However, little is known about technological interactions among people living rurally with dementia, who more often live alone and make up a larger proportion of the rural population in England compared to urban. Assemblage theory in a multiple case study approach used field notes and data from a mix of instruments administered in a semi-structured interview in people's own homes. Within and cross-case analysis illuminated the rural context of the interplay between everyday technologies and everyday life situations among ten people living with dementia in a rural part of northern England. Findings highlighted participants' reactions and responses to interactions that involved Information Communication Technologies (ICT), driving and parking technologies, shopping, banking, and payment technologies. Other rural actors were involved in these interactions; staff and customers, neighbours, family members, infrastructures, policies and local service providers. Case's reactions and responses were seen to involve processes of technologising and manualising to stabilise their everyday lives and mitigate destabilising threats. The implications of this paper highlight a need to: 1) Improve access to, and support people to decide upon and use rurally befitting ICT infrastructures. 2) Create easy-to-use, sustainable and resilient banking processes in rural places that promote a sense of community. 3) Simplify access to services by considering parking and technological demands and procuring the most inclusive solutions. Meeting these needs could support rural communities to become and remain dementia-friendly in the face of continuous technological change.

INTRODUCTION

Despite representing an essential workforce, it is unclear how global policy efforts target early-career dementia researchers (ECDRs). Thus, this study aimed to provide an overview of policies through which ECDRs are considered and supported by dementia plans and organizations.

METHODS

G20 member states were evaluated for their national dementia plan alongside policies of leading dementia organizations. Data targeting support for ECDRs were extracted and subject to content analysis using inductive coding. Findings were categorized and narratively synthesized.

RESULTS

Only China, Denmark, England, Greece, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Spain, and the United States mentioned ECDRs in their national plan. Additionally, 17 countries formalized ECDR support via dementia organizations. Support efforts included research funding, dissemination and networking, career development, and research advice.

DISCUSSION

Few nations formally recognized ECDRs in dementia plans or through dementia organizations. To facilitate equal prospects for ECDRs, top-down approaches are urged to enhance and align their efforts.

Having access to places and activities outside the home is known to be a central part of living a meaningful and fulfilled life. Such access is often dependent upon using different modes of transport (i.e. public bus, private car) and handling different types of everyday technologies (i.e. ticket and parking machines, payment devices). However, there are few studies which map how transportation and associated technologies impact access to places and activities among people living with dementia. This chapter details problematic situations that people living with dementia have described and sets the stage for what can be changed in rural and urban contexts to improve the dementia-friendliness of sustainable cost-effective transportation options using co-design methods.