Bridging the Gap: Design for Intergenerational Engagement in Dementia Care

Designing for social inclusion in dementia requires careful consideration, appropriate interactions and technologies to effectively enrich and support engagement. Intergenerational interactions between young people and people with dementia have been widely documented to be mutually beneficial through challenging perceptions of one another. As such, positioning younger people and people with dementia as key actors in user-centred design processes has been a hallmark of our research to date. In this chapter, we discuss design processes and outcomes from bespoke technologies, which encourage intergenerational engagement and challenge perceptions in dementia care. We reflect on the use of such technologies, and the strengths of younger volunteers and people with dementia in this process. We introduce examples of the technologies we have designed and evaluated in this context, discussing the challenges and opportunities of designing with the young and old.