Abstract
Sound and its resulting soundscape is a major appraisal component of the living environment. Where environmental sounds (e.g., outdoor traffic sounds) are often perceived as negative, a soundscape (e.g., containing natural sounds) can also have a positive effect on health and well-being. This supportive effect of a soundscape is getting increasing attention for use in practice. This paper addresses the design of a supportive sonic environment for persons with dementia in nursing homes. Starting from a review of key mechanisms related to sonic perception, cognitive deficits and related behavior, a framework is derived for the composition of a sonic environment for persons with dementia. The proposed framework is centered around using acoustic stimuli for influencing mood, stimulating the feeling of safety and triggering a response in a person. These stimuli are intended to be deployed as added sounds in a nursing home to improve the well-being and behavior of the residents.
Highlights
As ageing is a dominant concern of today’s society, adopting health care towards the needs of older people is an important challenge
Providing conditions that “permit,” but rather “promote” supportive sonic environments could be beneficial for the well-being and quality of life of persons with dementia in care facilities
The findings provide evidence that separable stages of auditory object analysis and separable profiles of impaired auditory object cognition can be considered as they are encountered in different dementia syndromes
Summary
As ageing is a dominant concern of today’s society, adopting health care towards the needs of older people is an important challenge. Providing conditions that “permit,” but rather “promote” supportive sonic environments could be beneficial for the well-being and quality of life of persons with dementia in care facilities For this to happen, it is necessary to raise awareness on this matter among the staff members working in the care sector [10,11]. The paper starts with a narrative review of elements contributing in the interplay between perception, cognition and behavior This leads to the main result, the definition of targeted effects which can be understood as contributing to behavior influencers and its presentation in a framework for soundscape design in nursing homes. This framework is discussed in view of general aspects and in view of related studies where soundscape deployment in nursing homes has been experimented
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