Designing books for readers with early‑stage Alzheimer’s disease

Publishers have so far paid little attention to readers who have dementia. The few books that are available tend to be large format, highly illustrated hardbacks with limited text and a strong accent on reminiscence. Books like these may be ideal for shared reading with family and carers (Bate, 2014), but anecdotal evidence suggests that experienced readers with a relatively recent diagnosis might welcome more adventurous texts. The research outlined below describes the studies I carried out in order to investigate whether adjusting the design of books could help readers with a memory impairment.

Will look through this to see how it might affect reading from a screen for those with early-stage Alzheimer’s disease.