The environment plays an essential role in how people living with dementia experience the world around them. Poorly designed spaces can increase confusion, anxiety, and risk, while dementia-friendly environments can support independence, safety, confidence, and wellbeing.
This free dementia friendly environments course explores how dementia affects individuals’ interaction with their surroundings and provides practical guidance on creating, evaluating, and improving environments to better meet their needs. It is suitable for anyone involved in designing, managing, or supporting care environments in health, social care, and community settings.
Why Take This eLearning Course?
People living with dementia often experience difficulties with memory, perception, orientation, and sensory processing. Thoughtful environmental design can significantly reduce these challenges and improve quality of life.
This free course will help you to:
- Understand dementia’s impact: Learn how cognitive, sensory, and spatial changes affect interaction with environments.
- Create safer spaces: Apply dementia-friendly design principles to reduce risk and promote independence.
- Improve orientation: Use lighting, colour contrast, signage, and layout to support wayfinding.
- Enhance wellbeing: Reduce distress through sensory-aware design choices.
- Use practical tools: Learn how to assess environments and implement realistic improvements.
- Promote inclusion: Involve people with dementia and stakeholders in design decisions.
Learning Outcomes
By the end of this course, you will be able to:
- Describe dementia and its common types.
- Explain how dementia affects cognitive, sensory, and spatial abilities.
- Identify environmental challenges faced by people living with dementia.
- Understand key principles of dementia-friendly design.
- Evaluate existing environments using environmental audits.
- Recommend practical changes to improve dementia-friendliness in different settings.
- Understand how assistive technology can support safety and independence.
- Promote inclusive and collaborative approaches to environmental design.
- Learn from UK case studies and apply best practice principles.
Dementia Friendly Environments Course Outline
Module 1: Understanding the Impact of Dementia on Individuals
Learners will develop an understanding of dementia and its common types, with a focus on how the condition affects cognitive, sensory, and spatial abilities. This module explores the everyday challenges people with dementia may face within different environments and helps learners understand why poorly designed spaces can increase confusion, anxiety, and risk.
Module 2: Principles of Dementia-Friendly Design
This module introduces the core principles that underpin dementia-friendly environments. Learners will explore how safety, accessibility, and familiarity support wellbeing. The module explains the importance of appropriate lighting, colour contrast, clear signage, and wayfinding, as well as sensory considerations such as reducing noise, glare, and overly complex textures.
Module 3: Evaluating and Improving Environments for Dementia-Friendliness
Learners will examine common barriers found in existing environments that can make daily life more difficult for people with dementia. This module explains how to carry out environmental audits and assessments, and explores practical, low-cost and structural changes that can improve dementia-friendliness in homes, care settings, and outdoor spaces.
Module 4: Technological and Innovative Solutions
This module explores how assistive technology can enhance safety, independence, and confidence for individuals with dementia. Learners will be introduced to examples such as motion sensors, smart lighting, and fall detection systems, and will understand how technology can complement good environmental design rather than replace human support.
Module 5: Inclusivity and Collaboration in Dementia-Friendly Design
Learners will explore the importance of collaboration when creating dementia-friendly environments. This module looks at the role of key stakeholders, including individuals with dementia, families, carers, professionals, and communities. Learners will understand how involving people with lived experience in design decisions and applying universal design principles can create environments that benefit everyone.
Module 6: Learning from Case Studies and Best Practice
In the final module, learners will review examples of successful dementia-friendly environments within the UK. This module highlights key lessons learned and encourages learners to reflect on how best practice can be adapted and applied to their own settings, projects, or services to improve quality of life for people living with dementia.
Target Audience
This course is suitable for:
- Health and social care professionals supporting people living with dementia.
- Care home managers and staff responsible for care environments.
- Housing officers, facilities managers, and commissioners.
- Architects, designers, and planners working with care or community spaces.
- Students and learners preparing for roles in dementia care or service design.
No specialist design background is required. The course is accessible and focused on practical application.
FAQ
What does the course cover?
The course covers dementia awareness, environmental design principles, practical improvements, assistive technology, and inclusive approaches.
Is this course practical?
Yes. It focuses on real-world examples and changes that can be made in everyday settings.
Is the content relevant to the UK?
Yes. The course includes UK-based guidance, videos, and case studies.
How long does the course take?
The course is self-paced and typically takes 1 hour to complete.
Will I receive a certificate?
Yes. A certificate is provided on successful completion.
Is this course CPD accredited?
Courses are not currently CPD accredited, but accreditation is planned.
Dementia-friendly environments support dignity, independence, and wellbeing. By understanding how design affects experience, you can help create spaces where people living with dementia feel safer, more confident, and more included.
Join this course today and build your confidence in creating dementia-friendly environments.
Dementia Friendly Environments Training Course CPD Accredited and Government Funding
We’re working on getting this Dementia Friendly Environments Training Course CPD accredited, and any course that’s approved will be clearly labelled as CPD accredited on the site. Not every health and social care course has to be accredited to help you meet CQC expectations – what matters is that staff are competent, confident and properly trained for their roles under Regulation 18. Our courses are built to support those requirements, and because they’re not government funded there are no eligibility checks or ID needed – you can enrol and start learning straight away.
