Taming the Chaos of Dementia
A Caregiver's Guide to Interventions that make a Difference
A hopeful and practical guide to taming the challenges of dementia with creative interventions inspired by real stories of sufferers and caregivers alike.
This book supports the journey—taken by both the caregiver and the person with dementia—providing loved ones with practical recommendations and enriched with human empathy. This book helps ease the stress It helps decode dementia's visceral world and supports non-cognitive human experiences. Barbara Huelat offers design interventions that support the family caregivers in functional and emotional outcomes.
Published Articles
Barbara's work has been published in the following outlets:
Medicina 2020
Currently, one in eight people over the age of 65 have dementia, and approximately 75% of caregiving is provided by volunteer family members with little or no training. This study aimed to quantify points of stress for home-based caregivers with the aim of reducing stress for them while concurrently supporting quality of life for the people with dementia whom they cared for. The overreaching purpose was to increase our knowledge of the caregiver stress burden and explore potential technologies and behaviors to ease it.
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Journal of Greenbuilding, Summer 2008
Biophilia is defined as a love of the living world. We seek nature, especially when we don't feel well. Nature can calm us with a beautiful sunset or invigorate us with a spring rain. Both ancient and modern people use nature in healing. Nature has always offered healing places: a sacred spring, a reflective pond, a quiet grove, and majestic peaks. For centuries we have sought these sanctuaries in our quest for health and healing.
The Center for Health Design
Wayfinding is a person’s spatial behavior or orientation. Spatial orientation is the static relationship to space or the environment. The concept of spatial orientation is the predecessor of wayfinding. This relationship requires the user to form an overall mental image of the layout of the place. This image is referred to as the cognitive map of the setting. Cognitive mapping concerns the ability to visualize a map, and wayfinding uses the cognitive-mapping process to solve location-based problems.
Unlike spatial orientation with its static relationship to space, wayfinding is a dynamic relationship to the space. It is dynamic in that people’s movement with their direct sense of orientation to place must be accommodated.
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