Determination of design criteria for developing dementia day care centre in Malaysia

Abstract

The objective of the research firstly is to identify what are the suitable design criteria of dementia day care centre and assistive devices for the elderly. Secondly, it is to determine the external and internal space planning of the current dementia day care centre and lastly to propose a design checklist to develop and enhance the dementia day care centre services with the help of assistive devices. Advanced assistive technologies have been known to have a positive impact on dementia in the elderly. But to date, such advanced devices have not been used in dementia day care centres in Malaysia due to a lack of knowledge. For this reason, the researcher decided to investigate this issue further in terms of physical building elements and the devices used by the elderly to help them with their daily routines. A total of three case studies were drawn from a sample, in which are the dementia day care centres located in Peninsular Malaysia were examined. This research uses both quantitative and qualitative approaches. Two instruments were developed to collect data; the first instrument is a checklist adopted from previous studies to profile data related to observations on the physical building elements of the day care centres. The second instrument is a questionnaire. The findings indicate that the physical elements of the building do have an impact on individuals who suffer from dementia in terms of their daily routine and their brain activity. There is also a lack of availability for advanced assistive technologies in all the dementia day care centres surveyed. However, the caretakers of the dementia day care centre do have other conventional assistive devices that help the elderly with their lives. The findings show that the equipment used by the dementia day care centres are not advanced, though, it has fulfilled their target to provide brain activity for the elderly to allow them to remain active and independent. Future research may explore the possibility of redesigning conventional assistive devices to the Malaysian context and how to modify the product to a better design.