What is Dementia friendly flooring? Let’s look at this fast-growing subject! it is estimated 47.5 million people currently living with dementia around the world. The figure is increasing year on year, so Dementia friendly homes and public spaces are becoming more and more important.

We are familiar with other ideas such as lighting and placement of furniture, but what role can flooring have to make your home or public spaces more Dementia Friendly.

So where does flooring fit in?

There are many ways in which flooring can play a vital part in making lives for people with dementia easier to live with as part of multi operational effort. for example

Using continuous colours helps see the floors as one continuous surface where as a sudden change in tone or colour could be a step and cause confusion, but in the same way using a different colour can define areas that are out of bounds or for staff only.

Using flooring with acoustic properties can also help with unwanted noise causing over stimulation. using a floor covering with acoustic properties will help here.

Using strong hues and colours can give the impression of more depth to a room but avoid the use of dark colours as this can be perceived as a hole, or as a small space triggering the feeling of been trapped.

Using to many colours and tones can cause sensory overload, confuse the eye and create potential trip hazards

Sparkling flooring in wet areas can be Perceived as a wet floor, there are now wet room floor coverings that do not have the sparkle effect.

Use a matt surface to reduce light glare. gloss floors can also be a wet slippery surface.

Easy to clean flooring that does not harbour odours can also be very helpful as odours can cause stress and confusion.

Sudden Changes in texture such as hard to soft or low to high friction keeping the flooring as similar as possible can be very helpful.

We hope you found this information useful and a good introduction on how flooring can be used to improve the lives of those living with dementia.