A designed home for elderly people – In a Universal Design Context

When it comes to age, people seem to think differently about it in different cultures. In some cultures they say that the older you get the better life you have which leads to better life conditions. While in other cultures the perception of elderly people as individuals are people that need help and that are not so fit anymore. Many cultures also have a combination of these two thoughts. A common thing in every society is that people tend to have preconditions about life conditions for different ages. We tend to group people into age frames that we use for our pre judgements about them. Its common to hear people say; “Teenagers always do this…” or “Elderly people are like this..”. Is this right? Do we have the right to group people into age and then generalize a thought about all of them? Even though I think that we need to think about people as different from one another and that each individual are unique in themselves, we also need to group them according to age when it comes to design. I think that for design to be optimized in the best way, we need to look at our users and what their conditions are. This is why it is important to look at what conditions do, for example, elderly people have in certain situations. After the design has been made for a certain group, like elderly people, we can make design implementations that can fit each individual.

When designing a home for elderly people its important to understand the difference between people. One design can be very useful for one person and not useful for someone else. Therefore its important to specify the needs of the user who the design is for, the design should be need-driven. It’s also important to think that even though the person is older he or she should still have good looking and useful design. And by accepting ageing we can in many ways avoid stigmatization.

The definition of “Elderly” is more or less a non-homogenous group of individuals. Some of them can have impairments that they have had their whole life and some usually comes when they get older. This is because their bodies get older and changes in many ways. The four most common properties that an elderly person may suffer is:

• Cognitive problems (Dementia, stroke etc)
• Perceptual problems (Vision, hearing, smell)
• Physical problems (Muscle and skeleton weakness, paralysis, damaged joints)
• Medical conditions (Diabetes, diseases)

These properties are all important to think about when designing for elderly people. Many elderly don’t have the same conditions as they did when their were young. This needs to be taken into account in design, so that design is universal and so that everyone in every society can be included whether they are young or old, have an impairments or not.

The design of the home should support people with the four common properties. The design should therefore include these types of including design factors:

• Cognitive problems

Cognitive problems is very common for elderly people. Cognitive impairments and cognitive exhaustion is a very scary and big issue that for many people is hard to grasp. It is therefore crucial that the home is designed so that it supports these impairments.

• The home has to be logically designed with much open space. This will help the person who lives there to find their way around much more easily. Imagine living in a house where the design is more complicated so that some rooms aren’t connected to each other, this could then be an issue for a person with cognitive loss.
• Many elderly also have issues with memory loss. Therefore is could be an idea to have a small screen with light diode next to their bed that will display different things in the house. There could be one diode that is for the door to show if its closed or open, one to show if the oven and tv is shut off or is on and also if any light still is on. This could be shown by red and green lights. This could help people who have a hard time remembering what they have shut down etc.
• Many places in the house could also have timers. Like the oven for example could have a timer so that it will be turned off after two hours if there is no interaction with it.

• Perceptual problems

Perceptual problems are problems that in many cases are affecting many elderly. The loss of good sight, hearing and smell is very common.

• Things like door handles, oven buttons, tv buttons, remote control, telephone buttons, the house number should be bigger. This is because it would make it easier for the person to see them and then understanding what it is.
• Carpets could also be part of the floor in the house. This could help in the way that the person who lives there doesn’t need to be scared to trip on the carpet edge.
• Speakers for the tv should be closer to the couch to avoid the hearing issues when sitting far away from the tv.
• All the thresholds in the house, like from room to room, shower step etc could be designed with higher contrast color. This could help a person with low sight ability to see where and how to walk so they dont trip.

• Physical problems

Physical problems is also a very common part of ageing. The body is no longer the same as it was when they were 30 and it is many times frustrating when living in a house where the design isn’t fitted for an ageing body.

• There has to be a open plan in the house. This will help the person who lives there to move around and find their way around without problem.
• Doors should be wider to have more space both for people who have a hard time walking and therefore using rollators and also for people in wheelchairs.
• A house without steps is also important so that its always easy to walk around with minimum effort.
• The toilet seat, kitchen chairs etc should be higher so that the person doesn’t put so much effort on their legs when sitting down and standing up. A chair can also be placed into the shower so that the person can sit. Handles on the wall is also a good design to help the person when trying to stand up.

• Medical conditions

It is hard to make specific design solutions that can support elders medical conditions. This is because the body when it comes to medical conditions is very individual. There are though some design solutions that can be implemented into the house.

• On some walls in the house, near the floor there could be buttons that the person can press if they fall. The button would immediately contact an ambulance that would come to the house.
  • The person could also bracelets with the same function so that they have it closer to them.
• The telephone could have one button that also goes directly to the emergency central so that its easy access. This could help people who have bad sight or if they don’t feel so good and need a fast way to contact the emergency.

Listed above are some ideas for universal design for a home for an elderly person. Something to remember with this is that everyone is different and that impairments and getting older looks different for every person. Therefore its important to try to both design to avoid stigmatization so that its the same for all but also to design for the individual level.