Abstract
Recently there has been an increasing interest in the acoustic environment and its perceptual counterpart (i.e., the soundscape) of care facilities and their potential to affect the experience of residents with dementia. There is evidence that too loud sounds or poor soundscape quality more generally can affect negatively the quality of life of people with dementia and increase agitation. The AcustiCare project aims to use the soundscape approach to enhance the Quality of Life (QoL) of residents and to reduce Behavioral and Psychological Symptoms of Dementia (BPSD), as well as improving the everyday experience of nursing homes for both residents and staff members. In order to gain further insights into the sound environments of such facilities, sound level monitoring and soundscape data collection campaigns were conducted in the living rooms of five nursing homes in Flanders. Results showed that sound levels (dB) and loudness levels (sone) did not vary significantly between days of the week, but they did so between moments of the day and between living rooms. From the perceptual point of view, several soundscape attributes and the perceived prominence of different sound source types varied significantly between the living rooms investigated, and a positive correlation was found between sound levels and the number of persons present in the living rooms. These findings claim for further attention on the potential role of the sound domain in nursing homes, which should promote (and not only permit) better living and working conditions for residents and staff members of nursing homes.
Highlights
The design and management of care environments is increasingly attracting practitioners and researchers’ interest due to the important societal role these facilities account for
On the one hand it aimed at getting an overall impression of the “acoustic climate” of the living rooms included in the project; on the other hand it aimed at exploring, in the most systematic possible way, the soundscape quality of the living rooms
Within the framework of this paper, acoustic metrics are meant to Within the framework of this paper, acoustic metrics are meant to inform and support the analysis of soundscape quality. It was inform and support the analysis of soundscape quality. It decided to consider only the sound level monitoring during the time slots of the day that were was decided to consider only the sound level monitoring during the time slots of the day that were covered by the soundscape assessment protocol
Summary
The design and management of care environments is increasingly attracting practitioners and researchers’ interest due to the important societal role these facilities account for. In spite of its environmental significance, sound is often disregarded as an influencing factor of the users’ experience in such contexts. Specific standards for the acoustic performance of care facilities are often missing and this is likely to lead, in turn, to noisy and unpleasant sound environments. The perception of sound environments is of utmost relevance in places like hospitals, care facilities, or nursing homes, since these places often deal with “vulnerable” users, like older adults or people with intellectual disabilities [1].
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