Being able to prepare your favorite food yourself and easily for as long as possible can give a huge boost to the feeling of home and self-confidence of a person with dementia.
In a previous newsletter from the ECDT we interviewed Sonja Bouten, ambassador of the disease “young dementia” and also known as a participant in the cooking sessions of the TV program “Restaurant Misverstand”. During these broadcasts, organized by Alzheimer Netherlands, follows people with dementia who run a restaurant together as volunteers. During our first conversation, Sonja already indicated that her biggest challenge lies in managing and planning activities within a set time period. Coordinating the order and duration of actions to get something done is difficult and so important during the cooking process.
Guided cooking for people with dementia
Shortly after the publication of that newsletter with Sonja's interview, I was approached by an energetic student Yvon Ruitenburg, industrial designer, who was completing her master's degree in “Design for Interaction” at Delft University of Technology. Her interest in the disease Dementia and especially her love for her boyfriend Mark brought Yvon to the south of our country, more specifically to the Eindhoven University of Technology. Rens Brankaert, our specialist in the field of designs for people with dementia, immediately recognized the necessity and impact of her practical research. Together with Gert Pasman from TU Delft, they fulfilled the role of supervisors during her graduation “cooking with dementia”. The link with the wishes from Sonja Bouten's interview was quickly made and so Yvon and I drove to Thorn several times, combining brainstorming sessions with observations during the cooking process in Sonja's warm kitchen. During the practical preparations and the cooking sessions themselves, we received tremendous help from Sonja's dear friend, Wilhelmien Knapen.
“Using a laptop while cooking is inconvenient and it makes the screen very dirty!”
The recipe as a board game
With her project, Yvon would like to help people with dementia and their environment to continue living comfortably at home for as long as possible. Yvon's previous research and Sonja's personal experiences show that a laptop in the kitchen is not a good idea because it is difficult to handle. In addition, the screen becomes full of greasy fingers and smudges, which does not improve visibility. After an iterative design process with many user tests in people's homes and at social meeting centers, we opted for a practical standing (due to lack of space on the worksheet) map model like in a board game, detailed down to every implementation step. Just like in a board game, we use a (magnetic) pawn to indicate which step in the cooking process is next. A magnetic kitchen timer is also placed on the recipe itself, so that it is always clear what the timer has been set for. Icons, accompanied by little text, appear to be clearer than photos. Photos are time-consuming for the recipe writer, and can cause anxiety and present an unrealistic end result to the chef.
People with dementia and their caregivers prefer to continue cooking as they are used to, in their own kitchen and with their own favorite recipes. Just bake grandma's delicious cookies or make that special casserole "garlic mushrooms with brie and bacon", Sonja's favorite dish. So Yvon has not only researched how the recipe is presented, but also how it can be made by the family and friends of a person with dementia. Using Yvon's app on the computer, people can make their own dementia-friendly recipe. They only have to type in the steps themselves, the app puts it in a nice layout and adds the icons automatically. Users can then easily print out the recipe themselves.
Being able to prepare your favorite food yourself and easily for as long as possible can give a huge boost to the feeling of home and self-confidence of a person with dementia. Cooking together in your familiar kitchen, surrounded by your own pots and pans, with a little support from the visualized recipe as a board game ;”a little bit of yourself and a little bit of Yvon's app!"
Yvon Ruitenburg will complete her master's degree in March and has been offered a PhD position by Minha Lee of Industrial Design at our university. Yvon's “guided cooking for people with dementia” project will be followed up through research by the “student challenge” and the “student team” both facilitated by our Dementia & Technology Expertise Center.
Yvon Ruitenburg and Ans Tummers-Heemels
