Tsekleves, Emmanouil and Bingley, Amanda Faith and Lujan Escalante, Male and Gradinar, Adrian Ioan (2020) Engaging people with dementia in designing playful and creative practices:Co-design or co-creation? Dementia, 19 (3). pp. 915-931. ISSN 1471-3012
Preview |
paper_proof.pdf - Accepted Version
Available under License Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial.
Download (395kB)
Abstract
Stimulating active, social interactions for people with dementia is an important and timely chal- lenge that merits continuing attention in design research. The idea of using participatory co-design to engage people with dementia is attracting increased interest. In this paper, we draw on our qualitative study that used a playful, participatory arts approach to explore the ways co-design could be implemented in a group of 12 people with dementia and their carers, and developed practical recommendations, in the form of a set of playing cards, for other researchers and caregivers to work in similar ways. The emphasis is on the value of play and playfulness, providing a ‘magic circle’ (Huizinga, 1955) that fosters the required conditions for a co-creative, co-design space. This aims to encourage social interaction between people with dementia, to stimulate imagination and creativity; and engage even the most the reticent, less confident members. Our observations, however, suggest that the exact notion and nature of co-design within the context of working with people with dementia is unclear. We critically explore wheth- er such participatory creative practices that engage people with dementia can be considered as purely co-design. In conclusion, we argue that such interaction is better described as co-creation and that this definition can still embrace considerable contribution and involvement by people with dementia in a co-design process.