The Alzheimer's Disease Bookstore

Designing for Alzheimer's Disease: Strategies for Creating Better Care Environments

by Elizabeth C. Brawley, IIDA

Good design leads to a better quality of life for people with Alzheimer's Disease.

Of the over 30,000 residential and skilled nursing home facilities in the United States, it is estimated that more than fifty percent of the residents have Alzheimer's Disease or related disorders. Can architecture and interior design play a role in helping these individuals live more peaceful, secure, and independent lives? In fact, recent studies have shown that the environment strongly influences the behavior of individuals with Alzheimer's Disease because their diminished memory and reasoning capacities cause them to respond more intensively to the immediate environment that the cognitively unimpaired.

Designing for Alzheimer's Disease: Strategies for Creating Better Care Environments is a resource for architects and designers who specialize in health care to focus specifically on Alzheimer's Disease and related forms of dementia. Explaining in concise, nontechnical terms how the disease affects cognitive and functional skills, the book offers detailed guidance on a broad range of design issues that are central to the creation of therapeutic care settings. It features:

• Specific design suggestions that are linked to therapeutic goals, such as increasing mobility, reducing confusion, promoting safety, and maximizing functional abilities
• In-depth treatment of design criteria for lighting, color, pattern, texture, and acoustics
• Extensive information on furnishings, fabrics, floor coverings, wall and ceiling finishes, windows and window treatments, plus product information and specifications
• Key information on room size, shape and arrangement, outdoor space, and security
• Over 100 photographs, including a sixteen page color insert, that give full expression to the design principles discussed in the text.

Designing for Alzheimer's Disease provides a much needed understanding of this debilitating illness and the effect of design on those living with it. With a moving foreword by actress Shelley Fabares, as well as the benefit of Elizabeth Brawley's own family experiences with Alzheimer's Disease, this book is vital for architects, interior designers, nursing home administrators, and anyone caring for a person with Alzheimer's Disease.

About the Author:

Elizabeth C. Brawley, IIDA is President of Design Concepts Unlimited, an interior design firm specializing in long-term care and Alzheimer's special care. She is a member of the National Board of Directors of the Alzheimer's Association and has been active in public policy at state, national, and international levels. As a consultant and an industry leader in the area of environmental design, Brawley is a speaker at numerous national and international conferences regarding environmental design for the elderly and those with Alzheimer's Disease and dementia. She was a contributor to the Alzheimer's Association's Guidelines for Dignity and is a frequent contributor to research and professional publications.

You can now order the book listed below directly on the Internet from Lake Solitude Media's Alzheimer's Bookstore in affiliation with Amazon.com Books. Click on the link below.