Dementia Lab Conference 2021: Supporting Ability
How can design uncover, support, and enhance the abilities of people with dementia?
Dementia Lab is a design-oriented conference and inclusive multidisciplinary community including designers, artists, researchers, health professionals, carers, and people living with dementia that emphasizes how participatory approaches to research can support people living with Dementia (PLWD). The Health Design Lab hosted the 5th installment of the conference, Dementia Lab 2021: Supporting Ability, in collaboration with the event’s founders from the LUCA School of Arts (Belgium), and design researchers from Eindhoven University of Technology (The Netherlands).
The 2021 event was a virtual conference, held over a two-week period, accommodating a range of timezones for the international conference audience. The aim of the conference was to highlight manner in which design or creative methods can uncover, support and enhance the abilities of people living with dementia. This events and presentations highlight issues and innovations surrounding ability and disability, focusing on ways we can engage with people living with dementia that are not determined or limited by what they cannot do, but instead embrace ways in which they are able to contribute. Conference presentations, discussions, workshops focused on the themes of: (1) engagement: ethics of inclusion and shifting the culture of care to one focused on both personal independence and reconnecting with the community; (2) empowerment: new ways of designing with/for those living with dementia, embracing challenges and tackling stigma to break negative stereotypes and preconceived opinions; (3) identity: approaches to countering social isolation, retaining personhood/dignity and fostering empathy.
Planning the conference, was a co-design exercise in itself – with the Health Design Lab team collaborating with people with dementia on the design of the conference website, the event schedule, community agreement and zoom guide. A strong emphasis was placed on expanding the audience for the event to include people living with dementia, designers, researchers and health professionals from around the world to join virtually in a series of talks, workshops and performances.
Between January 18-28th, over 150 people attended the conference events which included:
- A three-part speaker series featuring 13 talks.
- 17 participatory workshops, attended by over 235 participants.
- A keynote by Christina Harrington, titled Moving Beyond Accessible: Considering Design’s Reach for Marginalized Aging Populations.
- An Opening by Raising the Curtain.
- A Film Q/A: Lost in Memories.
Engagement Approach
Our process for conceptualizing the conference included co-designing with a group of local community members living with dementia. Through conversations with our conference collaborators, we learned about their preferences regarding personal identification and the impacts of certain language and terminology regarding “dementia”; we learned about what makes a meaningful physical surrounding—especially while living through the pandemic; we learned how to promote cultural sensitivity within the conference, and how to foster engagement by all conference attendees. Through inviting co-designers to teach us about their skills and share their stories, we learned about their unique lived experiences, and they provided guidance on engagement guidelines for the conference—stressing the importance of learning through doing and the reciprocity of giving and gaining energy to and from others. It is in this spirit that we endeavoured to structure the conference in a way that was inclusive and responsive to the needs of our non-academic audience and partners, and as such co-created a conference zine to share additional stories to complement the academic proceedings.
Knowledge Sharing
The outputs of the conference include a co-designed Zine to capture the conference experience, a published book of conference proceedings and a set of recorded videos.
Conference Zine:
Conference Videos: Recorded Talks
Conference Proceedings: Dementia Lab 2021: Supporting Ability Through Design
- HDL project: Scaling Participatory Methods for Cultural Change in Long Term Care Homes
- HDL Project: Designing Conversations: Using Life Stories to Improve Dementia Care
Caylee Raber and Jon Hannan continue to serve on the organizing committee for Dementia Lab. For more information about this international conference visit: https://www.dementialabconference.com/
Project Collaborators
Partners:
LUCA School of Arts
Funder:
Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council
Vancouver Coastal Health
Alzheimers Society BC
HDL Project Team:
Tyler Hawkins
Garima Sood
Paulina Malcolm
Caylee Raber
Jon Hannan
Lisa Boulton
Nadia Beyzaei
Timeline:
Jan 2021
