Positive design of smart interactive fabric artifacts for people with dementia

Confronting the expected rise of dementia as a major health care problem raises many questions about the best ways to adapt the health system to deal with it. To the extent that intelligent assistive technologies can help, there seems to be value in comforting fabric artifacts enhanced by electronic games and activities designed to support, engage and entertain people with dementia. Local cottage industries which now support the creation of textile crafts should be empowered to scale up to meet the growing demand for such products. New design concepts are required to accomplish this in the face of rising costs and limited resources. This paper proposes a four-step design process that meets this need, and provides practical suggestions about how it could be applied in this context. A number of examples are included.