WAYFINDING AND DEMENTIA - SOME RESEARCH FINDINGS AND A NEW LOOK AT DESIGN

The increasing interest and research effort devoted to dementia and to other disorders of the latter part of life are a reflection of the lo ngevity of the population in developed countries. Dementia is an acqui red syndrome of intellectual impairment produced by brain dysfunction. This paper presents a study exploring wayfinding abilities in dementi a of the Alzheimer type (DAT) and suggests possible design interventio ns, Fourteen patients and a control group of 28 subjects, matched in t erms of age, sex and education, were asked to reach a prescribed desti nation in a large hospital. Subjects had to verbalize all behaviors th ey engaged in as well as all the information underlying their actions. The verbalizations were recorded and then content analyzed. Results s howed most DAT patients to be incapable of developing an overall plan to solve the wayfinding task and incapable of producing decisions invo lving memory or inferences. Conversely, they were better able to make decisions based on information of explicit architectural nature. Explo ratory behavior,vas more prevalent in DAT patients compared to normal subjects. Patients performed poorly when forced to extract relevant in formation from graphic displays and tended to be confused by irrelevan t information displays. The paper concludes with a discussion of desig n criteria concerning the spatial organization of settings and the cir culation system as well as environmental communication.