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Design Guide for Long-Term Care Homes

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This guide offers designers guidance for creating personal care homes for elders, particularly those with cognitive challenges. The author’s goal is to help designers provide spaces that encourage socialization, offer easier navigation, support better cognitive function, and set the stage for predictable care outcomes. The design guide emphasizes the deinstitutionalization of these facilities and applies the process of evidenced-based design to their development, including practical explanations of a number of design issues. Use of the small household model to create environments in which elders can live out their later years with purpose and fulfillment is exemplified in six short case studies. Also included is a “master list of design interventions” for addressing basic design attributes. The design guide is periodically updated.

Design Guide for Long-Term Care Homes