Giving people living with dementia a strong voice: reflecting on the role of design to create enabling activities

This opinion piece questions, reflects on, and highlights some of the challenges that prevent the potential of design being realised in the context of people with dementia to create products and services that do not further stigmatise individuals but that celebrate and tap into the innate resilience individuals possess. We begin by reflecting on the current state of the art in the context of design and dementia and then highlight some of the dangers that an over-reliance on the medical model presents. We conclude with considering some of the ways that designers of the future may wish to learn and draw inspiration from people with dementia and the positioning of dementia as a disability (social model of disability) than purely a disease process.