Abstract
Several aspects of communication, including language and environmental positioning, influence and challenge the experience of home and place by people living with dementia in residential long-term care (LTC) settings. Social positions are negotiated and performed by residents and staff in LTC facilities through various verbal and nonverbal interactions. Verbal interactions include conversations between residents and staff. Nonverbal interactions include physical structures (e.g., a table) and their assigned meanings (e.g., part of a dining room). The ways that space and objects affect dynamics in communicative interactions comprise the concept of environmental positioning. By presenting the illustrative case study of Rosie, an 86-year-old widow living in a 20-bed dementia care unit, this chapter considers how staff and residents use conversational positioning to construct power relationships and identities. It also considers how environmental structures help or hinder such constructions and how to potentially improve the lives of long-term residents by rethinking space. Overall, LTC environments must take the perspectives and experiences of people living with dementia into consideration at all phases of design process, despite perceived challenges associated with language changes and dementia.
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This research was funded by the Alzheimer’s Association, NIRG-08-91765.
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de Medeiros, K. (2023). Communication and Environmental Positioning in Dementia Care Units: Dialogues Through Space and Place. In: Ferdous, F., Roberts, E. (eds) (Re)designing the Continuum of Care for Older Adults. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20970-3_10
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