DEIN-ORT

In February 2021, the BMBF third-party funded project: "Perspektive DEmenz. INclusion promotion through socio-spatial organization, inclusion-promoting space and person-centered technology (DEIN-ORT)" was launched. "The topic is complex, which is why it requires a multi-perspective viewpoint," says Friederike Asche, initiator, project coordinator and doctoral student in the project. Together with project leader Prof. Dr. Stefanie Kuhlenkamp (Applied Social Sciences) and sub-project leaders Prof. Diana Reichle (Architecture) and Prof. Dr. Carsten Wolff (IDiAL), the project successfully acquired four years of project funding from the BMBF.

In the "DEIN*ORT" research project, positive places of intensive identification ("places") in public spaces are being tracked down from the perspective of the growing group of people with dementia and their caregiving environment using the example of the "Ruhr area" conurbation and examined with regard to their potential to promote inclusion. People with dementia and their relatives often experience increasing alienation from their previous lives. As the disease progresses and their ability to compensate diminishes, they are exposed to increasing influence from environmental factors (docility thesis). They therefore need an environment and support that adapts to them and their needs. However, it is not enough to simply meet certain structural standards or provide physical space. Rather, the extent to which these spaces can also be changed in terms of processes and tailored to each individual is crucial for adapting the environment for people with dementia. To this end, innovative, inclusion-promoting, social and structural measures as well as digital aids from the areas of local services and mobile telephony (e.g. in the form of an app) are (further) developed, tested and interlinked in the project with the target group and the science-practice partners active in the field.