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Judith Phillips

Gerontologist

Jul 7, 2026

18:43
Yeah.
18:43
So how it's designed is really important, and design was also another key aspect of this program.
18:50
So we need to design homes that support the physical, cognitive, and sensory changes associated with aging because the home is, as I said, very central, and it needs to encompass us as we age.
19:05
So we had a project led out of the University of Stirling, and this was looking at a house design in relation to older people and how they navigated around the home.
19:19
So, uh, we were looking at, for example, if I take the kitchen as one area, it was looking at design principles of how the kitchen was laid out, the use of drawers rather than cupboards, the importance of high levels of light, the importance of color in the kitchen, which sometimes can be less important than contrast.
19:41
We used a VR headset with a number of people, and bearing in mind, this was done during COVID, so we couldn't be with many people using the headset.
19:51
So, uh, this was sending out VR headsets for people to use, older people, and they navigated around the home using the VR headset that we had created and so were able to make comments.

6 MINS LATER

26:16
I mean, are there any statistics or is there any grounds for feeling that we should do more of this or something like this should be tried in other areas? I mean, how, what, how do we know it's working? I mean, you tell me that people are fond of designing their own home, but we don't have any statistical evidence, do we? Or any clear-cut numbers that we can say, "Oh gosh, life has improved to this extent."

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