Aged care: responding to the needs of dementia patients

When Sweden’s Falun Municipality and Sweco Architects built The Castle, a care facility for people with dementia, they sought to create a design that enables staff to provide great healthcare, while also responding to residents’ needs. The facility in Slottet Falun provides a clean, safe and attractive environment, helping every resident to feel independent, yet part of a community, while benefitting from access to nature or pleasant surroundings, and the ability to take part in gentle exercise. With 60 apartments and four floors, each floor has been painted a different colour so that the residents can easily orient themselves. The colours have also been specially chosen to create a calm and consistent feeling. In particular, we have used Tarkett’s iQ Optima Acoustic for residents’ rooms, providing optimal acoustic comfort, while the bathrooms are covered with Tarkett’s Granit safe and Tarkett’s Wallgard wall covering, selected for their softness and non-slip features, together with ease of cleaning. Residents can move around easily, with or without assistance. All these solutions also help to promote good indoor air quality, which is increasingly important in care facilities and nursing homes.