You can listen to Episode S2E11 right here!
Lori Pinkerton-Rolet
Hello, and welcome to the Third Age design podcast sharing essential information on senior environments. I’m Lori Pinkerton-Rolet, and this month we’re focusing on design for dementia, which supports respect for residents. We’re going to go in depth with Clinical Professor of Sociology, Dr. Christopher Johnson of Texas State University in the United States. And…Dr. Johnson taught for a while at the University of Stirling in Scotland, the very institution which assisted in the development of this month’s innovation spotlight, VR EP. Yes, it’s virtual reality, but not as we know it, Jim. This isn’t about video games. Staying with today’s theme about dementia environments just keep listening to hear how this award- winning technology will change your perceptions and that of your staff. The late, great poet Maya Angelou said, “Do the best you can until you know better, and when you know better, do better”. That’s precisely why the Third Age Design podcast exists, we all want to do better. And I believe that we all know there’s room for improvement in the senior living environments we design. So by listening to top experts, such as our guests today, it can only help. After listening, you’re going to find lots of links on the topics we’re discussing at our website at ThirdAge.Design. And, if you hit the ‘Join Us’ button, you’ll receive this quarter’s ‘A TAD Extra’, exclusive information for our community members, and it’s free to join. So listen, join, and continue your own journey towards improved senior environments. The ThirdAge.Design podcast is supported by Innova Care Concepts whose mission is to enhance quality of life through innovation. From hydrotherapy pools to furniture, you’ll find quality, aesthetics, and functionality in all unique Innova product. Innova Care Concepts, the leading edge of health care. Okay, let’s get started… My guest today is Dr. Christopher Johnson, currently Clinical Professor of Sociology at Texas State University, and he helped to develop the United States first Master of Science in Dementia and Ageing Studies. He was director of Gerontology for the Institute of Gerontology at the University of Louisiana for 27 years, which is amazing because he’s only 30! He developed an award-winning online Master of Arts programme during that appointment. He then retired from U LM and travelled to Scotland to teach in the Dementia Studies Programme at the University of Stirling prior to taking up his current position in Texas. Dr. Johnson, welcome.
Dr. Christopher Johnson
Thank you, Lori, it’s a pleasure being here.
Lori Pinkerton-Rolet
I am fascinated, and you were very kind to send a lot of research in advance of our speaking, and obviously I’ve done some research on my own as well. But I was quite fascinated by your paper with Dr. Dietrich on (and I think listeners will love the name of this as well), the ‘McDonaldization’ of long term care, in which you point out tensions between revenue and profit. And the very idea of person- centred care. When you’re looking at staff costs and time constraints and that sort of thing. You appear to indicate that the bureaucratic approach makes a very predictable situation and predictable healthcare is what you call it. And that people who have behaviours which are challenging, are sometimes labelled as problems. So as a sociologist, (I’m eventually getting to your question), in what ways what a less predictable environment be of benefit to those living in the care sector with Alzheimer’s?
Dr. Christopher Johnson
Well, first of all, it’s very important that the environment be linked to the science of design, what we know, and what we don’t know. But also the time travel model that we’ve developed in our publication, ‘The American Journal of Alzheimer’s’ and subsequent publications as well. We have to begin with local design has to look at the locality and where the person is located. It doesn’t make any sense if you’re in a rural farm area to have pictures of the beach and or some other something that doesn’t relate not only not only has to relate locally, but also in terms of time travel. So the earlier pictures of Austin here would be helpful to someone who was born and raised in Austin, right? And then it has to be more specific in person- centred within their own area, their room and where they live. That relates to their family history and the time travel of that family history. I’m not talking about their current family, I’m talking about their parents, their brothers and sisters, the family of origin in which they were raised, because time travels suggest they’re not living in the present, right? And so to properly validate them using new Naomi Feil’s validation therapy, and her therapy, by the way matches our time travel model quite well. Because if design matches up with their time travel, you really got something you’re on target. Because they can relate, they’re living in a different timeframe than you are. And then, and or the home in which they’re living the community, whether it be assisted living, or nursing home or memory, care, whatever. So we begin with local, and this is why, you know, I question a lot of the dementia villages is because, you know, for America, it works well, in the European setting, your village. We lived in Scotland for two years, but it doesn’t match up with America,
Lori Pinkerton-Rolet
…because people walk in Europe. For a start, yeah,
Dr. Christopher Johnson
We get into these, you know, frenzies and trends, without really thinking about science, the science of design, the science of dementia, and time travel. So we have to be specific, we have to relate to the locality in which the home is located. And then we have to relate to the family of origin of that person with dementia. Depending again, on how far they have time travelled, you know, if they’re, if they’re in, if you use Reisberg’s Seven Stages, if they’re in Stage Five, they still recognise they’re the family that they’re in their nuclear family, you know. So, you know, pictures of them are appropriate. But when they’ve time travelled back to age 30, or 20, and they have a memory box by their room that has a picture of their wife, you know, and their and their grandchildren or whatever, they’re in different timeframe. Right, totally, you’re totally out of sync with their time travel.
Lori Pinkerton-Rolet
And so the research that you did on time travel, I’d like to just break down for the listeners a little bit more. We will put links on to that work on the podcast page of this episode. But, you’ve actually created a model, which as I understand, it explains why if people are younger, when they get Alzheimer’s, for example, as that form of dementia, they tend to pass away sooner sometimes then people that are that are older. And that’s as I understand it, because it’s not necessarily a straight linear decline of mental agility. You draw it out as a physical model of loops, that go forward, they go back, they go forward, they go back, and they’re there, they’re continuing to go back and back and back in time, which then makes what you’re saying, make a lot of sense in that their, their, their wife or their grandchildren, if they have travelled back in time to their 20s is not going to mean anything to them. Have I understood that correctly? Or is there a better way of explaining it?
Dr. Christopher Johnson
Well, absolutely. You’re absolutely right. So what happens then if, you know, suppose I have a magic wand and I go ‘poof’, and you know, you’re, you know, say the person now with dementia with Alzheimer’s, which is only 50% of all dementia. So we don’t want the Alzheimer’s stereotype. It’s all Alzheimer’s, but when they time travel back to or say age 20 And they walk into a bathroom and they look in the mirror and they in their head, they’re 20 and they see an 80-year old face. They’re gonna say, What are you doing in my bathroom? Who are you? And then an 80-year old man comes in and says, I’m your husband. I’m not even married. I’m, a I’m 20…who are you? And then you know, so you’re and then you know, so the people and the room and everything has to relate to this time travel. And once it does, then the person is validated. But what happens is the environment and people are invalidating the person all the time because they’re not joining in in their trip back in time, or realising that it’s not a linear, even though they time travel, which is like Piaget’s stages of adult development and reverse. They go through all of these, they revisit all those earlier ages in the stages that Piaget explains, they can fluctuate back and forth through time. And that’s what our time travel models suggest. So even when they travel back to infancy, where they have total aphasia, they don’t they don’t talk or they just babble. The loops are all connected, there are those brief moments of lucidity where neurons kick in and shoot them right back up to the present. And they’ll say, hey, Lori, you’ve got a new hairdo. And they talk, then they go right back into that total, you know, phase, that total lack of awareness of who’s around them, and they’re kind of have that catatonic stare. And they have total aphasia.
Lori Pinkerton-Rolet
So how do we, as designers, and architects, and even the operators that are listening? How do we keep up with these loops so that the environments match? Because at any given moment, it’s unlikely to have people are bouncing back and forth. But as there’s a general decline in the loops, do we require environments that are easily manipulated or changed in some way? So for example, if you’re building a really contemporary dementia facility, somebody who’s 80 or 90, and goes back to their 20s won’t recognise architecture like that at all, it would be an incredibly foreign concept. So how, how do we work with this model?
Dr. Christopher Johnson
Well, the problem is the architects have no dimension ageing training, they ought to be in our programme, you know, and get the online master’s degree that we offer, because they don’t understand they understand universal design, which is important. They understand ageing in place, which is important, designing for ageing in place. But do they really understand time travel and therapeutic designs in dementia friendly environments, and that’s where the rubber meets the road. The environment needs to support dementia, citizenship, and person-centred care. And it can’t be person-centred care if it’s not personal, if it doesn’t relate to the life history of the person. A fella named Darren Evans in the UK, has developed an app that’s life history app. It’s called Time Travel app. And he contacted me said, ‘Look, your time travel model fits my app perfectly.’ And we feed all this life history information into the app so that the caregivers, we call them care partners are really our partners. They benefit too. Yeah. So care partners, actually, you know, can feed this information into the app. And if it’s a professional care partner, that person then learns about that person’s life history, and what’s important to that person in terms of everything, music, food, you name it, in their earlier years of growing up, and so it matches up with the person instead of warehousing everything. And the problem is the way that dementia designs, I designed the first dementia wing in Louisiana, right. And I was at University of Louisiana. And we’ve learned a lot over the years. And you know, one thing you do learn is that architects that have no dementia ageing training and education, which they need, will look at, you know, general things about other wings and then kind of put their spin on it. And so you have everything’s new and modern, but it doesn’t really match up to the person’s time travel. And so it’s out of sync. And it’s not really scientifically based. I mean, you have these little details that are wrong.
Lori Pinkerton-Rolet
Give me an example. Can you give me an example of the kind of detail that you might have seen that might be wrong?
Dr. Christopher Johnson
Plenty. Don’t get me started. Okay, well, let’s start with a memory box. That’s real simple that they put by people’s rooms. It’s up to high. They when they’re in stage six or using Reisberg seven stages of Alzheimer’s for example. They don’t look up they’re looking down at a 75 degree angle downward, they also don’t see in 3d. So, two things happen. You know, you can look at the memory box, it’s not, it’s up too high, people don’t understand they’re not looking up. So they don’t even see that. Number one, the content of it is bad. It’s not evidence based, it’s not based on time travel. So you see the wrong things put in the box. So they have absolutely no idea who this 80 year old man is, that’s supposed to be your husband that’s in the memory box. Or whatever. children or grandchildren, they put anything in there, it doesn’t matter, they don’t have no idea of time travel. So you know, that that’s wrong is the height of it is wrong. And then you, you know, we can we can talk about the mirror in the bathroom, where they’re talking to the mirror, we can talk about design that we have designed where they can actually see the toilet when they sit up from their bed. So they’re actually queued to their toilet, which cuts incontinence in half. But you know, it’s, it’s, they can’t find the toilet in the room, you know, the flooring is bad. They’re not using contrasting colours, right? Because 3d thing was, we see that in terms of hallways, and we see that in terms of chairs and choices of chairs and things. It’s an absolute disaster.
Lori Pinkerton-Rolet
If the innovation spotlight later in this episode is a virtual reality, piece of kit that was developed in part with University of Stirling, that as a training tool, so that architects, operators staff can see, get an idea, obviously, one person with dementia, that’s one person with dementia, but can get an idea of how someone with Alzheimer’s specifically might engage with a particular environment. And it’s I have to tell you, when I when I put the headsets on, it was quite, quite shocking. You were talking a little bit also about this supply chain. And I also find as a designer, there are a lot of products that really need developing. So I was involved in the development here in the UK of a dementia mirror by which without special tools, you have a surround with lights that can be on a passive infrared when you’re coming in and out if somebody wanted that. But basically it has a mirror, if somebody suddenly goes through a stage in their illness where the mirror is frightening them or confusing them, you can just switch the mirror around the other way, put the frame back on, and no special no special tools or damages done to the wall. And it’s because we couldn’t find anything like that there’s there doesn’t seem to be a lot of development in products specifically for this other than puzzles. I mean, tell me I’m wrong, please.
My wife did a publication my wife who got her PhD at University of Stirling in Dementia Studies and also as one first place in the nation in ‘Design Magazine’ for dementia design. My wife actually did a very wonderful publication on bathrooms in which that was pointed out with a mirror it but basically it’s just taking down the mirror or turning it around. Yeah, so that they don’t have this conversation that goes gets so frustrating and raises their frustration levels, which is totally unneeded.
Lori Pinkerton-Rolet
So how flexible do we need to be again as designers and architects with these spaces, because in somebody’s own home, for example, they’re not going to have or they’re unlikely to have a living room with you know, 15 chairs in it. But people tend to claim smaller spaces if anybody has any issues having to do with fear they’ll they may want to be in a in a smaller space. So do all of the spaces that we design really need to be flexible to get back, Dr. Johnson to what you’re talking about with this person-centred care and the needs of individuals?
Dr. Christopher Johnson
You know, small is better in a lot of ways. Small home like lots of staff, design for more institutions. I think we’re also moving very rapidly toward designing homes for ageing-in-place in dementia where people can age in place and also deal with dementia, we’re getting people in our programme right now that have, or that are in design areas that want to get their master’s in dementia in ageing, and learn about this. And, and you know, so I see that, that growth of that and then re-designing homes per one’s own home, for ageing-in-place in dementia, and then having more and more support services to keep them in their own homes, not to say that we’re doing away with assisted living in nursing home, but these are other less expensive alternatives. When you have dementia cafes, and you have dementia, Adult Day Services, we’re involved with one in Georgetown, here in Austin, I’ve been involved with Charlie’s Place in Baton Rouge, which is dementia where they had been down there. And you know, when it’s a wonderful respite care, you know, it closes at three, but it gives respite. So these are a whole gamut of, well, I mean, really good support services, but you have to have the home to be user-friendly. And that part of that is going to be a high level of education that has to go out to you know, the Alzheimer’s Society, they ought to be focused on this. I can say that because I was on their, their national board. So I can say what they ought to do.
Lori Pinkerton-Rolet
And, can people from other countries take your course?
Dr. Christopher Johnson
Absolutely. We’re getting people from all over the country, it’s only 33 hours, it’s online, where the growth is amazing. And, you know, it’s for a reason, it’s, current, it’s needed. And people need to have a level of humility, where say, okay, just because I’ve done, I’m an architect, and I’ve done, you know, 15, 20, 50, different memory care, neighbourhoods, I’ve designed all of those, it doesn’t mean that you design them, right, you’ve done the wrong thing over and over again. But you made many, you did a lot of right things to, but you also made a lot of mistakes, and you can continue to make them because they’re not evidence-based. And it’s those little details, the specs on the floor, the checkerboard tile, they think their specs, they want to pick them up, they fall and break their hip, it’s caused by design. And this happens all the time. Design causes accidents, that people don’t connect the link, don’t connect this, they don’t understand the sociology of environment. Sociology is the study of groups. And there’s a sociology of environment that looks at environment, and its effects on the person. You know, you can you have to have the people that come in contact, be educated, but you have to have an educated environment that’s based on evidence.
Lori Pinkerton-Rolet
But you’ve made that point really, really, really well. And it’s, it’s some, it does make me personally want to engage and continue my, my growth and education in this area as well. If you were to probably as a sociologist, you don’t use crystal balls, I’m guessing, but if you did, and you could manifest dementia friendly environment for the future, what would be some of the key attributes of that? Do you think?
Dr. Christopher Johnson
Yeah, you know, it’s, again, it gets back to it gets back to, you know, the, the basics of Universal Design ageing-in-place, dementia friendly and therapeutic design. Having the proper furniture, having outdoor areas and spaces that, you know, it’s little details that matter. I was in an outdoor area, you know, we have non-toxic plants. That’s another thing that I’ll tell you a short story that I went into. I’ve done a lot of consulting with different long term care and, you know, in nursing homes and so forth. And I went into this one and went out to their Alzheimer’s wing is what they call it, okay. And they had this little bush that had these red berries. And so I had, I said, ‘can you give me a little sample of those berries?’ I’d like to take it back to our toxicology lab. We had a school pharmacy, and I took the red berries back there, and they looked like cherries. I would eat them myself, but they actually were toxic. So the people with dementia would be eating those. So you know, it’s those little details like that, that, you know, in outdoor spaces, so called wandering areas, they’re poorly designed, my wife has done a lot in that very innovative stuff you need to have her on your show could be great.
Lori Pinkerton-Rolet
We could do another episode on this!
Dr. Christopher Johnson
But anyhow, you know, outdoor spaces, she’s really brought that home to me more than anybody I would say. So, you know, it’s everything that has the you have the environment itself has to relate to the locality. But you’re going to have residents that aren’t from that area. Right, I understand that. And so it can’t always do that. But it has to relate to time travel, right, the, you have to look back at the 30s and 40s. And general things, it’s not modern things don’t work well, in communicating. And if you want pictures in the hallway that they can see, remember that they don’t look up at a certain stage when they get this. And that’s why Riesberg stage model actually fits well with our non-linear model. Because he shows the deficits that happened that mark you going through the seven stages. But then when you look at our model, you realize they don’t go through neatly through those stages, they go back and forth through time through these loops. through the loops. Yeah. And so then you’re getting to person-centred care, which I submitted is not being practiced because, you know, we’re short on my wife’s dissertation found in three countries. And she did a three country comparative study of nurse aides and found that in America, they’re the working poor. And you’d have such turnover that, you know, they can’t deliver person-centred care, they don’t know enough about the person’s history.
Lori Pinkerton-Rolet
Or they’re not there long enough.
Dr. Christopher Johnson
Yeah, they have an app like Darren does that that gives the life history of the person. So you know, which relatives they shouldn’t see them, and ones they should. Now, I’m just kidding. But, you know, but I’m not really kidding. There’s some people who get very upset, you know, and that’s part of their life history. There’s very key details to their life histories, that matter, that ought to be in the design that ought to be in the pictures and ought to be and their music selections and ought to be in there, therapy, really therapeutic activities.
Lori Pinkerton-Rolet
So it’s drilling down to the individual and where they are at any given time. And reflecting that in the activities and the environment. Is that why?
Dr. Christopher Johnson
Yes, my wife gives an example of a place in Baton Rouge that they had these twins that were both out Alzheimer’s, and they were in a memory care, and they weren’t using the shower in their room. And they had always been their high income, you know, people used to spas and things like this. My wife redesigned the just made some changes to make it look like a spa, in their bathroom. And they started they got, they went gaga over it. And they loved it. They started taking showers. I mean, it relates to their life history. They didn’t learn a thing about the history of these women, until the whole life history and time travel thing came through. And you realise that they had been pampered all their life. They’ve been wealthy. And, and, and, you know, again, real person centred care relates to the life history of a person, you have to understand their history. And architecture has to relate somehow to their history. Design of the room around them. Yes, warehousing designs, one package fits all is not a good idea. And that’s what we’re seeing time after time. You get these big chains that get too big for their britches? Yes. And they start doing I’ve worked for him. I’ve been a consultant. I understand the problem.
Lori Pinkerton-Rolet
I know we’ve done some work with groups where we will get a list if it’s a new build of the people that they know are moving into the dementia area and what their, what their both past times are and what their careers might have been when they were in their working years and then we will sometimes so if somebody was a very keen seamstress, we’ll put sewing things in possibly without needles and sharp scissors, but we’ll put other elements that they can relate to or if somebody was a mechanic, you know, we would we would put this the safe end of the have the tools out for those people to, to relate and feel at home with as well. So there are ways of there are ways of doing it. But we make a very good point about the more study than more detailed research that that we can get involved in. As designers, architects and operators, the better it’ll be for everybody.
Dr. Christopher Johnson
Yeah, I think I think that’s the key to it is basically looking at their interior and the exterior and make it person-centred care is happening. It’s syncing with time travel, the whole idea of Tantra, and then it instead of invalidating the person. It validates them as Naomi Feil and say, you know…
Lori Pinkerton-Rolet
…because this is still their life, if whether they have dementia or not, it is their journey through life. And we all like to be validated.
Dr. Christopher Johnson
Yes, and, and I’m involved in a book right now. And the whole thing with the book is going to be ‘dementia re-constructed’ as we were looking at it, right, that the whole idea of dementia is tragedy, we’re not, I’m not saying it isn’t a tragedy, my mom had vascular dementia, which is similar to time travel, it’s just little stairsteps, short strokes that happen. But the thing that’s so important is that we really join them in in this process, and relate to them on a personal level. And the more that we can think outside the box with this, the better it gets, because then you can really, you know, look at it more as a cognitive disability than a tragedy.
Lori Pinkerton-Rolet
Yes, I understand what you’re saying.
Dr. Christopher Johnson
Yeah, we need to stop the Alzheimer’s stereotype because even the National Alzheimer’s Association does that right? Because there’s over 50 different diseases dealt with Korsakoff syndrome with men with dementia in their 20s, late 20s. from drinking too much alcohol in Scotland, you know, so you have all different these diseases that you have to you have to consider as well. So, you know, having proper diagnosis and we don’t have that in America, because in the UK, doctors have to have you know, courses in geriatrics here, they’re not required to have them at all. And so you have that that serious problem of lack of geriatric education, going with the lack of design, education and dementia. Specifically, not just ageing, or just dementia, some people do just dementia don’t realise the ageing eye and how that works and arthritis and the other things that are so important to ageing in place and designed for ageing in place.
Lori Pinkerton-Rolet
Thank you so much for your time.
Dr. Christopher Johnson
My pleasure, Lori.
Lori Pinkerton-Rolet
You’ll find links with a lot more about the topics we’ve been discussing with Dr. Johnson on the podcast page for this episode at ThirdAge.Design. As promised at the beginning of the podcast, we’re now going to take you into the world of virtual reality. And it’s not just for video games. I’m speaking with Kevin Gordon, co-founder and CEO of VR EP, virtual reality, which lets you and your staff experience environments, as someone with dementia might experience them. Having tried the equipment myself, I have to say I was shocked Kevin, and I’ve done a lot of research into this area is that the response that you get from a lot of people when they try the equipment…
Kevin Gordon
Just an awakening, or raising of awareness, you know that that empathetic experience, that immersive experience that VR provides. And you know, seeing the world through someone else’s eyes is a really powerful experience on a life changing experience. Really.
Lori Pinkerton-Rolet
We read and we do research about how people with dementia might experience it. And I know you were working with University of Stirling a bit on what some of the parameters are. Obviously everybody with dementia has a slightly different experience. So how were you able to tie down what the virtual reality experience might be for somebody trying to look through the eyes of somebody with dementia? How did you decide what those parameters were?
Kevin Gordon
Yeah. I mean, what we what we state this part of our training platform, which is a key offering that we can deliver to housing associations, NHS care practitioners, OT’s. As we always state and there’s an understanding right at the outset that this is not, you know, you’ve met one person with dementia, you’ve met one person with dementia. But there are commonalities that are common, there’s common ground, you know, I mean, when we worked with the academia in the early days, Lori, they said, ‘This is a game changer,’ you know, to be able to take all that, all that 3d, and immerse yourself in that environment. Now, you know, the key parameters, the key is that you experience everyone experiences is contrast, is lighting, is colour is de-saturation is how not just image is, in fact, it’s a bigger area, it’s a bigger subject, it’s a wider challenge, because it’s the age. You know, glaucoma, macular degeneration, yes, my mother and my mother-in law who had Alzheimer’s dementia passed away, sadly, I’ll never forget. And I use a picture of her on my presentations. And, in fact, she was on the key ashore, on the backdrop behind the presentations that we that we run. And she said to me one day, you know, sadly, after she’d slipped and tripped and, and ended up with a neck brace, and then subsequently began our hip. She said, ‘something’s different with my eyes.’ She said, things are different, you know, the patterns on the floor, the colours, this outfit, and when what was wrong colour that she that she picked up? No, she wasn’t there wasn’t a color-blindness issue, but it was the dementia who that was compounding that, that issue that visual issues, perceptual, spatial, you know, visual perceptual challenges are common in particularly across four areas of the of the dementia spectrum. But it has been, it has been a real challenge. And really, what we’re trying to do is our platform is not for sadly, it’s not a cure, and it’s not for the person living with dementia, but everyone round about that person. So the families and the carers and the designers and the practitioners who are looking after personal with living with dementia to raise the awareness of the importance of good design and bad design.
Lori Pinkerton-Rolet
But it’s not what you think. I mean, the thing that struck me because, you know, I research, I give lectures on this, I know about light reflective value differences. And I know about contrast levels, and boy asked me, I know all this stuff, when you put the virtual reality headsets on, it’s not what you think amount of de-saturation of colour is shocking. Absolutely shocking. It’s not as if the world goes entirely into grayscale, but it may as well, the lighting level drop, I mean, it was it was really, fundamentally changed. My understanding just that one experience, even though I’ve been researching and working in this area for decades, it was absolutely spectacular. So you use this for, as you said, other people, so you use it for staff training, is that correct?
Kevin Gordon
That’s a big, that’s a big, a really kind of important sector for us. Because that’s, that’s where we’ve had real interest, you know, is raising that awareness and getting the message across to families that, you know, the government strategy with England and the and Scott is to really keep people at home for as long as possible, you know, I mean, that’s going to really improve the quality of life and that each age well. And, you know, to be able to understand just key design changes that you can make at home, to improve the quality of life in case of safety, reduce slips, trips, and falls and the impact the economic impact and, and the social impact. And, and the mental impact and the physical impact of family. But if you can, if you can improve that environment, make that safer and better quality, then then then we’ve achieved a good game. So training is definitely a major area, because of the impact that you that you experienced. You noticed that wow, this is and we go through some key design changes as part of the training we hear from a lady who lives living with dementia. And she’s just sharing that her experience of moving into another flat and moving on. And where she makes changes of contrasting the light switches of contrasting of signage, the importance of signage, the importance of green and blue and hot and cold and red and blue and markings on the taps. You know and we can we can share that and really empathize with that and share that experience in VR-EP, because we have we have those spaces modelled
Lori Pinkerton-Rolet
So, as a designer or an architect, we wanted to we have an idea, we think this floor is going to be right with this wall. And we wanted to mock that up in some in some fashion. Is there any way of doing that with the technology to see? Yeah, that was a good call, or that wasn’t a good call? Or is that a direction that we might get to at some point with the technology?
Kevin Gordon
No, we are there at the moment. We are there now. With the backing and the support of Epic Games. So the journey has been a partnership, a lot of you know that there’s been a partnership we have an investment partner from a flooring manufacturer at Tarkett Global Flooring who have been absolutely amazing. They’re one of their company values was improving the quality of life of their customers in aged care sector. And we have mapped a wide range of their products that dementia friendly products into the IDP. And they’ve changed the design of some of the products that product lines as a result. So we can map products in company. So the Epic Games link, the Unreal Engine link, they’ve given us access to a software platform where we can take a BIM model, a Revit model of a hospital ward, and feed it into the VR-EP and apply our digital filter, a patented filter, that is really good to know, we need to work on that process, we need to work in the process, but we have proved it, whether with an architect in Germany and a project in Germany, so we have proved that we need to make an efficient process at the moment placing products, no problem, taking a model, no problem, but that the process needs to be a bit refined.
Lori Pinkerton-Rolet
RIght, and that’s something that people can participate in by working with you. Just to finish off, could you tell us about the award, you just won?
Kevin Gordon
Yeah, well, that is great. I mean, it’s designing for diversity. And that was just amazing. That was the Herald in Scotland, which is a major newspaper up here. Super exciting, because again, that what we just mentioned that I’ve realised in business that’s so key is partnership. And the partnership that we won that award with was in Scotland, who deliver dementia training on behalf of the Scottish Government for the Scottish people. So adding the VR experiential learning has been a real exciting journey for us. And now we are, we’re developing that platform into the cloud. So it’s accessible, and a bit more cost effective. And we are working with clients now who want to buy the license for a year to train their staff, induction staff induction is a key, there’s a high turnover of staff, we spoke about that at the Care Show. And one area of staff retention, potentially is good training. So that was that was an exciting award. We’re absolutely delighted by that. And the new one just this week is Business Innovation of the Year in Scotland. So pleased.
Lori Pinkerton-Rolet
Fantastic and very much well-deserved. And just as I had would have to consider myself having tried it a total convert not to be flippant about it because it’s almost the opposite. But it opened my eyes. And I can’t recommend it enough to listeners and just to say thank you, Kevin. And we’ll be putting links to the VR-EP website on the podcast page of this episode at Third Age. Design.
Kevin Gordon
Thank you very much.
Lori Pinkerton-Rolet
Just a quick look then at our TAD International Events Calendar. In February 2023, if you’re in the Far East, you’ll want to sign up for the Care Show from February the 8th to the 10th in Tokyo, Japan. And planning ahead…May looks like a very busy month! The Senior Living Executive Conference will be held in New Orleans, Louisiana, I think they pronounce it N’Orleans, Louisiana in the USA, from the 8th to the 10th of May. And if you’re there order some beignets for breakfast…and you’ll thank me. in Antwerp, Flanders, the International Conference of Integrated Care will be taking place from the 22nd to the 24th of May. You’ll find more listings on the event page at Third Age.Design and let us know via the Contact page if you have an event that you’d like to see listed there. Next month’s podcast will be our year end review of the best of the ‘Innovation Spotlight.’ Thank you to today’s special guest Dr. Christopher Johnson of Texas State University, to Kevin Gordon a VR-EP. To our producer Mike Scales, to Valerie Adler of The Right Website, to Peter Thorne, who composed our theme music and is playing the piano with Mary Blanchard on flute. And to our sponsor, Innova Care Concepts the leading edge of healthcare. And to you…thank you for being part of a community who believes we can improve senior environments together. I’m Lori Pinkerton Rolet and I hope you’ll join me for the next one.