Insights & Solutions

Learn about the capacity of a virtual nature experience to significantly reduce stress, reduce anxiety, and increase pleasure, and treatment strategies that provide hope of reducing pharmacologic interventions and of improving quality of life for individuals with dementia and the staff who care for them.

Learn about: why the imagined and built environment needs to take a broader, more deliberate role in supporting aging patients, the tools that designers and providers must use to create supportive physical and social spaces, and information that visionaries, collaborators, and patients can share to streamline the design process.

Learn about: why the needs of older people are often overlooked, how universal design can support people as they age, how universal design also benefits people of varying abilities and generations, and the need for designers to think about functionality in new and existing spaces.

Learn about: How UMCPP accommodates the unique needs of senior citizens through a special ED unit, design features that were included to help older patients and their families better navigate the space, and the hospital’s acute care for the elderly (ACE) unit, and why it is configured to transition senior ED patients for an inpatient stay in the most supportive environment.

This tool is meant to support a universal design approach to environments for aging populations. 

Aging often involves a multitude of changing needs and priorities. However, there are human needs and desires that remain constant throughout the life course. Design strategies for aging must not only address basic physiological and safety needs, but attend to higher-level human needs as well. The universal design approach is being adopted by many forward-thinking designers who aim to support equitable, flexible, and accessible environments for all users.

Learn about: the homelike model for resident care Riverside Assisted Living Facility Administration wanted to apply, the full-scale mock-ups of the proposed living spaces that launched the project, and the ‘neighborhood’ concept that enables greater resident independence as well as safety.

Learn about: the frequency and cost of falls among older adults, reasons older people fall and what can be done to prevent falls, and other safety concerns among older adults.

Learn about: cognitive changes that occur with normal aging, the definition and stages of Alzheimer’s disease, and design interventions that can reduce negative behaviors characteristic of Alzheimer’s disease.

For the 2014 cycle of the Facility Guidelines Institute's health care design guidelines, a brand new volume is being developed for residential and senior living facilities; entitled the Guidelines for Residential Care Facilities: Design & Construction of Health, Care, and Support Facilities. This guideline includes nursing homes, hospice, assisted living, independent living, adult day care, and wellness/diagnostic facilities. The vetted approach to the guidelines is to provide design information, as well as parameters for Authorities Having Jurisdiction to evaluate and incorporate culture change and resident-centered approaches to the residential-based care.