Technology Can Improve Buildings for People with Dementia

The Plan-EAT tool for assessing buildings combined with spatial analysis can improve the design of aged care facilities for people with dementia.

An international project developed the system, which evaluates a facility's layout to gauge how its design relates to residents' needs, then applies machine learning, agent-based modeling, space syntax, and fractal analysis to formulate improvements.

Michael J. Ostwald at Australia's University of New South Wales said Plan-EAT analyzes the floorplans of proposed or existing facilities using "dementia design principles" like safety, size and scale, stimuli reduction, movement and engagement, privacy, and social interaction.

"Plan-EAT produces a kind of index against which the properties of architectural plans can be measured by expert assessors and then used to change a design for the better," Ostwald explained.

From University of New South Wales (Australia)
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