The Dementia Lab Conference 2022 provided three days of engaging discussions, networking with international colleagues, and inspiring stories from people with dementia, their carers, and companies developing products for people with dementia. As the number of people with dementia continues to increase worldwide, designers, educators, companies, and carers are continuously presented with new challenges. Design can help to harness the power of technology, services, environments, and engagements to alleviate these challenges, and contribute to the quality of life, care, and wellbeing of people living with dementia. With a mix of keynotes, lectures, workshops, stories and exploratory exhibitions, the conference gave about 150 participants the opportunity to engage on the topic of design for people with dementia.
The conference was hosted by the LUCA School of Arts, Inter-actions Research Group with support from the University of Leuven (KULeuven) Faculty of Arts, one of Europe’s oldest universities, and took place in one of Belgium’s most historic cities, Leuven. This edition of the Dementia Lab Conference was set up in collaboration with the final conference of the European Interreg North-West Europe (NWE) project Certification-D. In the Certification-D project, partners from Belgium, France, Germany, Great Britain, and the Netherlands are working on a certification procedure for technical products to support people with dementia living at home. In recent years, the range of technical products to support people with dementia has grown considerably and certification of products is needed to support companies in business growth and identify products that match the needs of the users.
During the Dementia Lab Conference, the Certification-D project was disseminated through an exploratory exhibition, lectures presenting the results and future plans of the project an open session in which companies involved in the project could present their products and ask questions, and a roundtable with associated partners to fuel the project. The final conference of the Certification-D project reached a large network of designers, educators, students, companies, carers, and people with dementia and provided opportunities for the future out roll of the project.