HGPI Board Member Prof. Satoko Hotta, HGPI CEO and Board Member Mr. Ryoji Noritake, and HGPI Senior Associate Mr. Shunichiro Kurita participated in Design for Ageing and Dementia International Research Network Workshop 3 held by the University of Stirling in Scotland.

This Japan-UK research project is led by the Dementia Services Development Centre (DSDC) at University of Stirling. One of the DSDC’s goals is to develop and popularize guidelines for dementia-friendly design. To explore themes in dementia, this project involves researchers from both the UK and Japan from various academic fields such as medicine, architecture, sociology, and informatics as well as representatives from the business sector and think tanks.

At Workshop 3, a discussion was held on the direction of Japan-UK cross-sectional studies conducted in pursuit of one of the project goals, the implementation of dementia-friendly designs. Discussions held on the first day had a particular focus on output indicators, outcome indicators, the frameworks of comparative studies, and important points for conducting cross-cultural participant observation research studies. Participants split into multiple teams to hold these discussions. On the second day, a discussion was held on research impact indicators and included comparisons between systems in the UK and Japan.

Each team deepened the discussion on the purpose and significance of environmental change through design. The social implementation of dementia-friendly design was examined by drawing on each participant’s background to delve into topics such as mental and physical effects of the environment brought about by changes in design or the ideal way to structure the organizations that will be responsible for the sustainable creation of such environments. On the topic of output and outcome indicators, methods of measuring Quality of Life (QOL) improvements for people with dementia were also discussed while referring to previous studies and other relevant items from each country.

Moving forward, both parties will continue to build networks and hold opinion exchanges on Japan-UK cross-sectional studies as part of the project.