Dementia Lab Conference: Making Design Work - Engaging with Dementia in Context, Eindhoven, Netherlands

We are looking forward to meet you at the Dementia Lab conference 2019, taking place on 21 and 22 October 2019 in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, hosted by the University of Technology Eindhoven. The Dementia Lab is a growing community, established in 2016, that builds forward on a legacy of work done for and with people living with dementia and their surrounding context. In the Dementia Lab community this is approached from an inclusive, participatory and person-centered perspective. Where in other venues it might be challenging to convey the experience of working with people with dementia, or the urgency of working in this field, the Dementia Lab allows for a focused discussion around this topic with like-minded designers, researchers, carers and other professionals operating in the same area. Design is important in the wider dementia context. The number of people with dementia is still vastly increasing, presenting us with various challenges. Technology, services, environments and engagements can alleviate these challenges, and contribute to the quality of life, care and wellbeing of people living with dementia. 

For Dementia Lab 2019, we welcome submissions from a variety of disciplines, including research, design, care, and more, and in the following formats, ranging from full research papers, to posters, exhibition-demos and (personal) stories around, or related to, design and dementia.

The theme for the Dementia Lab 2019 is “Making design work: Engaging with dementia in context”. This theme focuses on research and design happening in direct engagement with people living with dementia, and their wider social and care networks. This call for participation welcomes especially contributions that reflects on how design and research efforts unfold in the context of living, working and caring for/with people with dementia.

‘Making design work’ zooms in on what ‘works’ or ‘does not work’ in terms of design, technologies, services, environments or design methods in these contexts of living, caring and working. Questions that can be tackled by a contribution that focuses amongst others on the relational character (of, for example, the designer or researcher with the contexts, carers, family and/or persons with dementia), challenges of materiality (what visual, tactile, olfactory, or other materials ‘work’ for and with people with dementia in context) or temporality (what engagement in time is needed to let design or research work and have a sustainable impact on people with dementia). In Dementia Lab we avoid to see people with dementia as the physical or cognitive characteristics of the syndrome, or as a collective, but rather focus on their personal and lived experiences. In doing so, we are considerate to the identity of and role people with dementia themselves can play.