The Dignity Manifesto of Design
for People Living with Dementia
Goals
As designers, researchers, care deliverers, care receivers, and people living with dementia we have come to understand that good design for people living with dementia entails respecting their dignity, autonomy, independence, equality of opportunity, and non-discrimination.
Values
In pursuit of these goals, we value projects and designs that:
- Consider the holistic wellbeing of the individual, community, and environment
- Are authentically co-designed with people living with dementia
- Enable people living with dementia to choose to remain in their communities and with their families
- Maximise intergenerational interactions
- Focus on the strengths and abilities of people living with dementia while compensating for functional changes
- Accentuate the freedom of people living with dementia to make choices
- Assist people living with dementia to maintain their culture
- Are informed by evidence and research
Principles
These values are supported when design and planning of the built environment respond to the following evidence-based principles
- Begin each project by developing a vision for a dignified way of life for people living with dementia.
- Where safety measures are agreed to be appropriate, design them to be as unobtrusive as possible.
- Design the environment to reflect a human scale.
- Plan the environment to make it easy for people to see and move where they want to go.
- Optimise stimulation.
- Promote movement, engagement, and meaningfulness.
- Afford people opportunities to enjoy contact with nature
- Design all components of the environment to be as familiar as possible.
- Afford people opportunities to choose to be alone or with various size groups of people.
- Provide easy access and connection to and from local communities, families, and friends.
October 2021 revision
The Design Dignity Dementia Team: Richard Fleming, John Zeisel, Kirsty Bennett, Jan Golembiewski, Kate Swaffer, and Lynda Henderson.
July 2025 The Design Dignity Dementia Team
Richard Fleming, John Zeisel, Kirsty Bennett, Jan Golembiewski, Kate Swaffer, Lynda Henderson, and Joanna Sun.
designdignity.dementia.utas.edu.au
