Long‐term care Facilities and Dementia. Development of a framework to assess design quality in healthcare structures for people with dementia

Life expectancy has experienced rapid growth (from 77.6 to 81.3 years), resulting in an increase in Non‐Communicable Diseases (NCDs) and years lived with disability. One of those is dementia, with about 7 million people affected in Europe and the number is set to double by 2050. Those patients are complex due to the serious changes in the cognitive sphere, altering perceptions of the space. They are the most frequent users of healthcare facilities, but these structures often are not suitable to them. To this end, a rethinking is now urgent, and the use of Evidence‐Based Design (EBD) could be the way to create safe and suitable environments. This study aims to develop an evaluation framework of the main aspect in the design of a built environment for people with dementia.