Tips to make your home dementia friendly

A local home care expert has shared practical advice during Dementia Action Week for people living with dementia and their loved ones to make sure their homes are safe and comfortable.

John Keogh, Director of Bluebird Care Rochdale, oversees teams of care assistants visiting people across the region to give them support in their own home.

Dementia Action Week is a national annual initiative from Alzheimer’s Society aiming to raise awareness of the condition and the barriers people living with dementia can face.

An army veteran after 26 years of service, John is also an Alzheimer’s Society registered ‘Dementia Friends Champion’ – giving up his time to educate people in his local area about dementia.

Now John wants to share his expertise with the wider community to make sure that more people can live safely and independently at home in a comfortable and safe environment.

More people than ever are being diagnosed with dementia across the UK, and there are over 29,000 people living in Greater Manchester with the condition.

Most people also now say that they would like to live at home rather than move into a residential care setting, and John and the team at Bluebird Care are determined to support people to do that for as long as possible with their top tips.

John said: “I know from personal and professional experience that there are simple steps that we can all make to remove the stigma about living with dementia. Dementia Action Week is all about raising awareness of those steps.

“This year the theme of Dementia Action Week is ‘diagnosis’. Getting a diagnosis is critical to getting the right support and advice from the right people and organisations, enabling you to plan and giving you peace of mind that your wishes are captured and the support you get matches your needs.

“So I would also really encourage everyone to look at Alzheimer’s Society’s checklist for possible symptoms, available on their website.”

John’s five top tips for making your home dementia friendly are:

Get rid of clutter

A cluttered space can sometimes feel disorientating or confusing for a person with dementia and may make it more difficult to find the items you need to navigate daily tasks. Your home doesn’t need to be bare, but removing unnecessary clutter from surfaces and floors can help the space to feel more comfortable and easier to move around.

Think about how you use colours and patterns

If you have dementia, you might face challenges with the way you perceive and process different patterns and surfaces.

• Crowded patterns on floors, such as a chequered rug, can appear to be a series of square ‘holes’ in the floor, for example.
• Patterns on walls or curtains can be disorientating and may look like different textures or surface levels, or that they are moving (particularly with zig-zag patterns).

It can also be more difficult to tell the difference between colours and surfaces, and so you might want to think about using contrasting colours to make important parts of the room stand out – for example, to avoid falls, a bold coloured chair or a toilet seat.

Remove floor mats and rugs

If you have dementia, you may also have problems with your mobility and balance. Removing floor mats and rugs can be helpful as they can be trip hazards. They might also not be recognisable, and so could look like something that needs to be stepped over – increasing the chances that you could fall.

Use labels and signs

A really simple way to avoid unnecessary confusion is to use labels to help you to identify and find places and things in your home. Pictures and photos can help, too – such as a photo or illustration of the shower or toilet on the bathroom door to make it easier to find, particularly if you get up in the night.

Explore some dementia-friendly technology: There are lots of products out there that can really help people living independently at home with dementia:

• Electronic tags attached to your phone can be attached to items to help you to find them (for example, your keys or wallet).
• Dementia-friendly clocks can play a pre-recorded message at a certain time of day, for example to remind you to take medication or feed the cat.
• Automatic vacuum cleaners can be really helpful for people with mobility issues and, if you have memory problems, you can set them to clean at a certain day or time each week, so you don’t need to worry about doing this yourself.

Remember, if you have dementia or you are caring for somebody with dementia, there are lots of different support options available – including support to manage your home. Speak to your Adult Social Care team, visit your GP or local Alzheimer's Society service, or get in touch with Bluebird Care for more information.