Whether you are building, refurbishing or developing dementia-friendly care home environments, make sure your choices for walls and floors meet legal requirements as well as enhancing quality of life for service users, says Julie Hillhouse, specifications consultant for Altro
The UK population is increasing, as is the proportion of older people, according to the Office for National Statistics. This means increased pressure on social care, housing and healthcare services. In 2017, 18 per cent of the UK population was aged over 65 and 1.6 million people were over 85 years old – a figure that is predicted to double over the next 22 years.1
People are living longer and while many are staying healthier for longer, there has been a significant increase in the incidence of age related conditions such as dementia. The Alzheimer’s Society reports that the number of people with dementia in the UK has reached 850,000; assuming there is no effective public health intervention, it is predicted that this number will rise to over two million by 2051.2
In the UK, 38 per cent of people with dementia live in residential care or nursing homes and up to 70 per cent of care home residents have dementia or significant memory loss.3It is therefore increasingly important that care homes as well as other community buildings are designed to help those affected by dementia to live well.
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