Vice-Chancellor addresses Dementia Design conference

Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU) has reaffirmed its support across multiple subject areas to help improve the lives of people with dementia.

Professor Nigel Weatherill, Vice-Chancellor of LJMU emphasised the variety of research activity the university undertakes to help people with dementia as he welcomed guests to the Doing Dementia Design 2017 conference held at LJMU’s John Lennon Art and Design building.

Doing Dementia Design was held over two days and included talks by guest speakers from the NHS, fellow universities, the housing and arts sectors, panel discussions and workshops focusing on how homes and public buildings could be more dementia friendly.

People with dementia and their family members were also invited to share their views and take part in a ‘Living Lab’ – a design challenge were they could create their own dementia friendly virtual building.

Professor Weatherill said: “I want to express my support for this conference and this particular subject.

“Dementia is a serious issue, it’s a challenging issue and as a university we must look to see how we can support people with dementia and the fantastic individuals who care for those with dementia; and to look at how we can make the environment more positive for those with dementia.

“These challenges are truly multi-disciplinary and require skills from lots of different areas and of course this then brings in our structure as a university.”

He added: “We are a diverse university with a school of the built environment, architecture, health, nursing, well-being and social sciences.

“Absolutely we can come together as a community within the university to help our wider communities in the city region, and of course it’s a national issue so we can contribute to the national debate.”

LJMU is part of the Dementia Action Alliance.