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REVIEW article

Front. Dement.
Sec. Dementia Care
Volume 4 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/frdem.2025.1470066
This article is part of the Research Topic Innovating Care of People Living with Dementia Through Environmental Design View all 4 articles

Defining Familiarity in Nursing Homes Providing Care for Residents with Dementia: A Scoping Review

Provisionally accepted
Joanna Sun Joanna Sun 1,2*Sumiyo Brennan Sumiyo Brennan 3,4Therese Doan Therese Doan 4
  • 1 University of Tasmania, Hobart, Australia
  • 2 Wicking Dementia Research and Education Centre, College of Health and Medicine, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Australia
  • 3 J. F. Oberlin University, Machida, Tōkyō, Japan
  • 4 San Francisco State University, San Francisco, California, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Objective: This study explores the underpinning definitions associated with familiarity in the context of dementia inclusive design and nursing home environment.Background: Environmental design in nursing homes impacts the quality of life and care of residents with dementia. One of the key principles of design is the need for the environment to achieve a sense of familiarity. However, there are divergent perspectives regarding the term "familiarity." Inconsistent definitions are challenging to understand, and they continue to impact the implementation of good design. To that end, this scoping review examines the definitions and associated with familiarity, dementia, and the design of nursing home environments.The Arksey and O'Malley methodological framework and the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Extension for Scoping Reviews ensure the rigor of the scoping review. Searches were conducted using six databases for peer-reviewed publications in English from 1991 to 2023. Search terms included "dementia," "nursing home," "long-term care," "familiar," "familiarity," and "environments."The searches yielded 245 publications. Of those, 46 studies from 19 countries were included in this review. The review uncovered three central themes and compelling evidence citing the inclusion of homelike environments. Emphasis on design considerations includes the well-being of the designated population and the need to embrace multisensory integration in the design process.A strong link exists between familiarity and key design considerations, such as a homelike environment, well-being, and multisensory integration. These considerations can enhance the effectiveness of the design of familiar environments.

    Keywords: Dementia, Built environment (BE), Familiarity, aged care, architecture, Nursing, Design, environmental

    Received: 25 Jul 2024; Accepted: 14 Jan 2025.

    Copyright: © 2025 Sun, Brennan and Doan. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Joanna Sun, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Australia

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.