The concept of dementia-friendly cities and communities has achieved great dissemination in the international context since 2016. Although it is usually related with community networks and services, evidence and guidelines show the close relationship between the built environment design, health promotion, and the preservation of relationships with the local surroundings. Recent publications emphasize best practices in urban areas and care management. However, this is a very complex reality in each country depending on the sociosanitary services, the demographic, and geographic structure and many other different aspects including cultural ones. Moreover, design should also consider not only basic aspects such as habitability or universal accessibility, but also heritage, identity, and the feeling of normalized living. Knowledge about international experiences and innovative approaches is, as yet, an object of study as demographic ageing is still challenging all the welfare systems, especially in Europe. This study presents eight descriptive study cases in three different European countries—the United Kingdom, Belgium, and The Netherlands—to analyze the relationship between dementia-friendly initiatives and their intersection with design, urban planning and the provision of care. The results can provide strategic lines for development and innovation towards dementia-friendly societies and cities achieving SDG numbers 3 and 11 simultaneously.
International policies are challenged to create urban environments that foster active and healthy aging. This study seeks to determine the environmental and design factors that determine the use of public spaces by the elderly, using a mixed methodology that includes measurements of environmental parameters, observations and interviews with 200 elderly people during 2018 in three public spaces in the Arapiles neighborhood in Madrid. For the statistical analysis, different correlation tests have been applied between variables such as Pearson, Spearman, Mann Whitney U, Kruskal Wallis H, and chi-square. Besides, a multivariate statistical analysis is carried out to determine the degree to which environmental factors condition the use of public spaces by the elderly. The results show that the elderly represent 21% of the users of these spaces, their permanence is influenced by environmental factors such as temperature, humidity, wind speed and noise, however, only wind speed is determinant within a regression model. Besides, some elements of the design also significantly influence it, such as benches, water fountains and children's playgrounds, which coincide with the areas of preference and greater influx of elderly people. The analysis of external contexts is complex due to a large number of variables involved; however, the importance of environmental variables is highlighted and their control through an adequate design that promotes the general welfare and encourages the use of public spaces by the elderly. Important lines of research are being opened to face the challenges of 21st-century cities, to adapt to demographic change, guaranteeing the health, comfort, and quality of life of all citizens.
ResumenEste número especial se compone de una selección de comunicaciones que han respondido a la convocatoria del VI Congreso ISUF-H que tendrá lugar en la Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Madrid (Universidad Politécnica de Madrid) del 29 de septiembre al 1 de octubre de 2022.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.