How can using colours help with Dementia?
When I first started my journey to learn about colour, one of my passions was to discover and learn how using colour can help people.
Can using soothing colours help people heal while going through cancer treatment?
Can using the right colours for each person help with autism and ADHD?
Can using the right colours help babies sleep better and be calmer?
Can using the right colours in hospitals help to calm patients’ anxiety and help heal after surgery?
Can using the right colours in schools help kids stay focused and help them to love learning?
Thinking about colours, my Grandmother lived at home until she was 103. Her room was painted a light mauve, there were cream curtains, and warm toned wooden furniture, and gum leaf colour green carpet. I remember her bedspread was floral with light pinks and blues. She was a young at heart always, and I think having colour, rather than neutral colours helped keep her feeling young.
My path has lead me down different tracks and I haven’t researched as I planned. While researching something completely different, I came across this article from (full article link) by Jane Verity from Dementia Care International . The article talks about using contrasting colours to differentiate between walls and floor coverings, using different types of light globes, painting doors so they blend with the walls to hide the doors, thus preventing dementia patients wandering.
From the article, I found this part fascinating about how colour can change dementia behaviour and included aromatherapy.
“There is not much colour in the corridors or anything else to attract the person with dementia to stay in the corridors. In contrast, the bedrooms are bright and have attractive colours and special features such as big colourful balloons. This invites the person with dementia into their room.
Joan reported, ‘These colours are not solid colours – they are all blended like washed Italian / Greek style. They are more like being in a cloud or moving through space. They are magic. They stimulate the senses and prevent difficult behaviour.’
The curtains in the bedrooms have dark linings to blacken the rooms. This means the person with dementia can have a proper rest during the day and a morning sleep-in without being woken as soon as it is light.…….
The results of their research led the team to introduce a combination of colour and aromatherapy. They chose blue as the colour for the majority of the walls and yellow for the curtains for its ability to lift spirits and cheer the sick. They added large sea life murals, mainly in blue and yellow with a splash of orange corals for its energizing vibrations, and hung fish mobiles to complement the underwater theme. This colour theme also influenced the choice of furniture colours and style.
The blue wall colour was chosen for its calming and relaxing effect because it is known to help people who feel irritable, jumpy or aggressive. The team went about the whole project in an impressively thorough and scientific manner. They collected data both prior to and after introducing colour and aromatherapy into the area. The results were stunning…three months after the changes, incident reports relating to challenging behaviours were slashed by 80%.”
By Jane Verity © Dementia Care International
Reading this valuable research shows how using the right colours can help dementia patients. I believe it should be the same in nursing homes and retirement villages. Just because a person is getting older, why should they be surrounded by bland colours? Ageing is a privilege and a time to enjoy life even more. Older people can lose their spark quickly if they move to a nursing home. I can only imagine how they would feel, leaving their home of possibly many years, moving to a new home, having less of the things around them that they love due to space. Their new space can be made special to each person by using colours that they love, and should surrounding them with things they hold close to their heart.
Taking a beautiful bunch of bright coloured flowers can bring an older person joy.
Do you know an older person who needs some colour to give them some sparkle?
How can you bring them joy by using colour?