Comment: āTime travelā as dementia care Published on: 30 July 2019 Writing for The Conversation, Dr Kellie Morrissey and James Hodge argue that designers and carers shouldnāt be afraid of using the present and the future in innovating for dementia care. , and , The village of Hogeweyk in The Netherlands has been . It is home to 152 people with dementia and is run by carers who maintain a round-the-clock false reality for the residents. Hogeweyk resembles a 1950s village, with carers acting as butchers, shopkeepers and greengrocers, allowing the residents to . Residents are free to shop, visit the local cafe and roam around, all within the confines of this ādementia villageā. The model has won many awards and is touted as to care for people with dementia, keeping a semblance of an independent life from earlier decades alive ā even if itās somewhat false. And this ātime-travelā model is spreading. Plans are underway to develop the UKās first for Ā£15m. This time-travel model is even being adopted by existing . Mismatch When designers create care homes and villages for people with dementia, there is a risk that how the designers perceive residents and how the residents perceive themselves often do not match up. Developers of care homes in Bingley and Birmingham in the UK, who were , spent a lot of time and money building 1950s-style āmemory lanesā, complete with old-fashioned sweet shops and (where the bus never comes). These all appeal to the common notion of care home residents preferring to live in a sepia-hued 1950s landscape. The aim of placing people with dementia in the past is influenced by the so-called reminiscence bump that is seen between the ages of 18 and 32, where memories encoded in this period are often . But some people living in care homes now were born in the 1940s and 50s, and formed their most defining memories , so 1950s settings are already out of date for some residents. Dementia villages are also just that: villages. So they donāt match the experiences of people who grew up in . These villages are also often built on the , segregating people who may benefit more from feeling a with their local communities. Then thereās the issue of social class. Hogeweyk has a distinctly . But all sorts of people get dementia and end up in care, not just middle-class white people born in the 1930s. As designers, weāre hearing increased calls to . VR and 360ā° cameras We know from our research that looking to the past can be effective for some symptoms of dementia, but usually only when itās specific to the personās . Rather than constantly orienting people with dementia to the past, we can instead tap into their to be spontaneous and creative. And their ability to think about their future. This isnāt to say that care homes and dementia villages canāt be great sites for innovation. At Ā鶹“«Ć½, we are working with people living with dementia and their families to create immersive media, such as virtual reality (VR), 360ā° photography, and new ways of . Using , people with dementia and their families took part in personalised day trips to capture videos that they could replay in a VR headset. In , we created a virtual reality concert for a lady with dementia who had never seen her favourite artist - Shania Twain - perform live. Using VR lets people with dementia reminisce or seek an experience that places them in the moment, depending on their mood and wishes. In , we created digital musical instruments for people with advanced dementia and found that rather than shying away from the technology (older people are often seen to be ), they embraced it and enjoyed it. Designers and carers shouldnāt be afraid of using the present and the future in innovating for dementia care. Instead of spending millions on designing facilities to take people in care homes back in time, money would be better spent paying for more carer training, higher carer wages and . For instance, this could mean designing care services alongside people with dementia and their loved ones and carers to ensure their values are represented in the final design. As attractive as they may seem, dementia villages and care homes that use these time-travel techniques run several risks. They risk becoming outdated as the population ages. They risk alienating people of different backgrounds. And they risk freezing residents in time, often a time they never experienced or that they may actively reject. , Research Fellow, School of Computing, and , PhD Candidate, This article is republished from under a Creative Commons license. Read the . 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