Designing for playfulness through compassion: design for advanced dementia

Abstract

The LAUGH project is a recently completed international three-year UK Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) funded design research project. Outcomes from the research include a collection of playful objects designed to support the wellbeing of people living with advanced dementia that aim to provide comfort, pleasure and fun. These artefactsa series of seven prototypes of playful objects, have recently been exhibited in London at the Royal Society of Arts, the Senedd in Cardiff and in Sydney, Australia. This visual essay provides an explanation of the research underpinning the designs and the Compassionate Design methodology that has informed the work. Those in society who have the greatest need for excellent design are often the most vulnerable and may find it difficult or impossible to articulate what they want due to physical, sensory or memory impairment as a result of accident or disease. These people need innovative design solutions that are highly appropriate, customizable and sustainable. Finding ways to understand the challenges they face moment-by-moment and day-by-day is vital. Including them, and those who care for them, in a co-design process can provide rich insights into design requirements and result in better design solutions. LAUGH has involved key experts in dementia, including those living with the disease and their carers, at every stage in the research process. Each of the LAUGH playful objects has been designed for a specific person living with advanced dementia. Most of them contain embedded electronics, are interactive, stimulate the senses and are highly personalized. The design narratives behind three of the playful objects will be explained in relation to the three key themes of Compassionate Design, which stress the importance of personalization, sensory stimulation and maintaining connections between people and the world.

A calming hug: Design and validation of a tactile aid to ease anxiety

“…There is an important difference between this kind of device and a device that not only has the targeted effect of reducing anxiety, but is engaging, comforting or calming to interact with in its own right and so would be an object that we intuitively turn to when feeling anxious. Examples of devices designed for the latter kind of interaction include personalised objects such as the HUG cushion-like wearable or Giggle Balls [ 21 ], designed to engage the user through comforting or playful interaction while enhancing well-being, or robotic animals such as Paro the seal [ 22 ] and Sefidgar et al’s Haptic Creature [ 23 ] which are designed to engage the user by being soft, strokable and comforting while also reducing physiological stress markers.…”

Know-Me: A Toolkit for Designing Personalised Dementia Care

“…Systematic toolkits for designing for dementia care are limited. To the authors’ knowledge, there are currently two projects that have developed toolkits for designing for dementia care, i.e., LAUGH [ 13 ] and MinD [ 14 ].…”

Compassion informed co-design? Exploring the promise of compassion in co-design practice.

“…In this section, these two frameworks are examined in relation to the rigour underpinning them, to help determine whether and how compassion helps designers notice, address and prevent harm and promote wellbeing. Treadaway et al (2019) foreground a self-developed methodology into co-design practice which they call "Compassionate Design" (p. 148). This approach informs the design principles for products that support the dignity and empowerment of people with advanced dementia.…”

“…This Compassionate Design methodology is evidenced in the Laugh Project, prompting the researchers to consider ways to counter agitation experienced by participants and inspire more quality interactions with their carers (Treadaway et al, 2019). While Treadaway et al (2019) only involve a sample group of seven in their research, the strong empirical underpinnings of the methodology, and rich qualitative research, gives a reasonably high degree of confidence in a compassion-informed approach to prevent harm and promote wellbeing. Yet results of the project themselves cannot be generalised beyond the context of advanced dementia care to reflexively address inequities.…”

“…The purpose of this contextual review is to identify the promise of compassion, in reflexively addressing and preventing harm, and to promote wellbeing. However, applying empirical elements of compassion in co-design is in its academic infancy (Treadaway et al, 2019;Seshadri et al, 2019). Therefore, this chapter adopts a process of combining relevant literature from different disciplines into a robust argument to answer; What is the role of compassion to support individual and team reflexivity in co-design practice?…”