DEMENTIA REMINDER SYSTEM Chris Green www.chrisgreen-design.com
Kit McBride kitmcbride@live.co.uk
PROBLEM SPACE AND RATIONALE
“Reduce the patients physical need for carers, so their emotional needs can be focused upon”
To explore this problem, Calderdale Council set a seven month long research through design project to find solutions that increase independence within the home, decrease carer workload and free up more time to talk to residents. It was conducted by a team of five; two Product Designers (Chris Green and Kit McBride), two Mechanical Engineers (Matthew Marshall and Richard Stringer) and one Medical Engineer (Tim Frankland). Three kitchen based concepts were highly developed; the Reminder System for dementia patients that is presented in this booklet, a Kitchen Walker that allows osteoarthritis sufferers to easily move and carry ingredients around the kitchen and also load and unload the oven, and finally the Oven Dial Accessory for those with osteoarthritis to reduce the need to bend to view an oven interface.
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PROBLEM SPACE AND RATIONALE
The heuristic design process of Andreasen’s and Hein’s Integrated Product Development (1987) was used to help the project run smoothly. It gives the longest path from perceived need to sales and was chosen due to its realisation of ‘departments’ including marketing, design and production in making combined decisions, therefore reducing the downstream changes. This reduced the time it took members of the team integrate despite MULTIDISCIPLINARY TEAM WORKING their different backgrounds. TOGETHER THROUGH THE PROCESS OF INTEGRATED PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT
Chris Green & Kit McBride
The world is facing a crisis of an aging population, where the percentage of people aged 60 and over will double from 11% to 22% by 2050. Regional councils such as Calderdale are already struggling to fund the annual £50 million that is consumed by sustaining local care homes and therefore 60% of local authorities now commission 15 minute visits by social carer workers. It takes the able bodied 40 minutes to wash, dress, cook and eat meaning carers struggle to accomplish this in 15 minutes, leaving no time to deal with emotional needs. As people age, more barriers preventing social interaction occur meaning a 15 minute call can be their only social contact. Therefore satisfying emotional needs is just as important as physical requirements, as loneliness is directly linked illnesses such as dementia.
DISCOVERY PHASE Chris Green & Kit McBride
DISCOVERY PHASE The project was born from a Hack the Home Design-athon run by Enabled by Design, FutureGov and Calderdale Council. The day saw people from all backgrounds including designers, health and social care professionals, engineers and people with disabilities combine ideas, prototype and present initial concepts. Calderdale Council then presented 18 other problem areas to the Leeds University team which Calderdale’s Occupational Theapists established as the most crucial. To review the problems in greater detail, investigate each target market and present current solutions that may not have been seen before, a research report was written and presented to Calderdale Council. The results of this research led the team into designing specifically for kitchen based assistive products due to the key problems and importance of cooking a meal. In order to fully appreciate the problem of cooking a meal, an initial task analysis was carried out through filming a team member cooking a meal, before breaking this video down into different activities. This in turn helped the team to identify problems that had not previsously recognised. Seven main problems including loading and unloading the oven, lifting and moving items around the kitchen, opening and closing the oven door, using the hobs, resting around the kitchen, oven warning systems and using dials without bending were highlighted, before solutions were designed to a developed degree.
A BIOMECHANICAL EVALUATION WAS USED TO INVESTIGATE THE PROBLEMS AS WELL AS EVALUATE THE SOLUTIONS Further task analyses were used to develop a biomechanical evaluation of problems related to the strains on the different joints at different points within the task. Kinovea and Matlab were utilised to create videos to graphically illustrate the problem areas, with the angles being represented graphically to provide data for background graphs. These proved why the problem areas needed addressing and the design concepts for the Oven Dial Aid and the Kitchen Walker. A literature review allowed a target market to be chosen. The end product was decided as an assistive device to increase the market and therefore allow an increase in manufacturing volume and a decrease in cost. A ‘Design for All’ philosophy was chosen. REHABILITATION PRODUCTS MEDICAL PRODUCTS
MAINSTREAM/ CONSUMER PRODUCTS
ASSISTIVE PRODUCTS DESIGN FOR ALL PRODUCTS
THE DIFFERENT PRODUCT MARKETS AND THEIR OVERLAPS. PINK = OUR FOCUS AREA UNIVERSITY OF LEEDS 60 PRODUCT DESIGN
USER INSIGHT To gain greater user insight, initial research field work was carried out at the William Merritt Disabled Living Centre in Leeds to examine what the assistive design market had to offer first hand. The centre facilitates educating the local disabled population on which products are available to them as well as providing advice on what they require. Discussion with specialists at the centre allowed us to assess which products were most successful and possible reasons for this, which consequently improved our understanding. A number of personas were generated based on real life people to help us fully understand the finer problem details that potential users might experience. The persona developed for this product was a woman in her mid 90s who suffered mild dementia. This also aided us in predicting how the user’s support network i.e. children and grandchildren would interact with the product.
Chris Green & Kit McBride
USER INVOLVEMENT AND TESTING A meeting was arrange with a dementia specialist at Carers Leeds to evaluate virtual prototypes and a functional interface. Testing was done with a proxy user as access to a real dementia patient was not ethically possible. The concept of the product and the interface colour and images were praised, with improvements suggested regarding robustness, inclusion of voice recognition, call feature linking directly to a carer, reduction in the amount of onscreen text, changing the swipe lock to a tactile button, and widely spaced buttons to avoid errors.
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USER INSIGHT
The results of a user questionnaire are illustrated above involving target users aged 43-82 years old. This highlighted negative responses surrounding the product’s adaptability and originality. However, as dementia patients require familiarity, a product that looks similar to existing products is seen as a desirable feature. 84% of responses were positive, 14% were indifferent and 2% were negative, implying product/user interaction was 84% successful.
DESIGN PHASE
DESIGN PHASE PRODUCT DESIGN Phases 2 to 4 of Andreasen’s and Hein’s Integrated Product Development (1987) process covered the design phase. Phase 2 (Conceptual Design) included mind-mapping and sketching ideas, development and evaluation with Occupational Therapists (OTs). Phase 3 (Preliminary Design) consisted of design for manufacture and aesthetic design in an iterative loop due the equal importance of making the device inexpensive but desirable. Phase 4 (Detailed Design) involved minor modifications to the final design to ensure it could be fully manufactured, which was assessed through low fidelity prototypes to ensure appropriate size and shape before models were created for 3D printing.
Chris Green & Kit McBride
Below illustrates the development of the hub and satellite design through phases 2 to 4.
INTERFACE DESIGN A graphical user interface (GUI) was designed to accommodate the needs of a user suffering from mild dementia though adhering to certain design specifications. Six interactive prototypes were developed for testing and evaluation utilising Indesign to create basic concepts, InVision when using tablets and Powerpoint to include sound design. The final GUI screens shown to the right are a sample of those in the final design of the product. SOUND DESIGN Non-stressful pre-set alarms were designed for users who displayed elementary stages of dementia, as voice commands may be unnecessary or condescending. Alarms were designed to occupy the 3KHz region as this is where the human ear is most sensitive meaning the user could identify and localise the sound easily; the image to the right illustrates a spectrum analysis of the design. UNIVERSITY OF LEEDS 62 PRODUCT DESIGN
SOLUTION SPACE
STORYBOARD The following illustrates a storyboard of the target user would interact with the final design. Chris Green & Kit McBride
SOLUTIONS SPACE
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SOLUTIONS SPACE
1
2 3 4 5 6
Chris Green & Kit McBride
7
8
1
2 3 4 5 6 7 8
9
HUB (ABOVE) AND SATELLITE (BELOW) EXPLODED VIEW UNIVERSITY OF LEEDS 64 PRODUCT DESIGN
COST ESTIMATIONS BASED ON THE MANUFACTURE OF 10,000 UNITS TOTAL COST OF MANUFACTURE: £21.47 EXCLUDING TRANSPORT AND STORAGE TOUCH SCREEN Allows for easy interaction for both carers and patients. This 7-inch touch screen allows the buttons to be large without drawing unwanted attention when not in use - £4.42 DISPLAY MODULE - £3.37 INNER STRUCTURE Injection moulded HDPE holds the electronics in place - £0.85 PCB AND ELECTRONICS - £1.03 BATTERY - £0.10 SPEAKER - £0.70 CASING Injection moulded ABS provides an impact resistant protective casing - £2.22
DOME Injection moulded transparent ABS provides an impact resistant, light emissive design - £0.85 LEDS 8 lights attract for the visual attention of the patient - £0.24
Chris Green & Kit McBride
STAND Milled and sheet bent anodized Aluminum so the design is raised off the surface, allowing it to easily draw the patients attention - £2.07
PCB AND ELECTRONICS - £0.50 RECHARGABLE BATTERY PACK - £0.70 MAGNET - £0.01 INNER STRUCTURE Injection moulded HDPE - £1.03 SPEAKER - £0.70
STAND Milled and sheet bent anodized Aluminum - £1.19 UNIVERSITY OF LEEDS 65 PRODUCT DESIGN
SOLUTIONS SPACE
CASING Injection moulded ABS provides an impact resistant protective casing - £1.73
SOLUTIONS SPACE Chris Green & Kit McBride
EVALUATION REQUIREMENT
SCORE
WEIGHT TEST METHOD EVIDENCE FINAL SCORE
Must alert the user to certain tasks
4
Stakeholders must be able to input their voice
2
Alarms must be recognised in two or more rooms
3
Analysis of features
Interface must be suitable for ages 18-80 years
2
Interface must be anthropometrically adequate for 5th95th percentile of the market
Test Prototype on users
Results from the testing
Feature analysis Analysis of design
100%
100%
Analysis of design
80%
Survey of different ages
Survey Results
80%
3
Design compared to data
Analysis of design
100%
Must be easily installed by users/carers/family
2
Test prototype
Results from Survey
100%
Must fit into a variety of houses and be attractive to the range of users
1
Survey
Results from survey
80%
Must be affordable to the users
2
Analysis of design
50%
Must not have to be maintained
4
Analysis of materials and manufacture
Should be instinctive to use
4
Analysis of features
Analysis of design
90%
Test prototype on users
Results of testing
80%
EVALUATION
Results showed that the design may be too expensive for many users and therefore manufacturing a higher volume is crucial to reducing this problem.
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86%
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The programme team wishes to thank the following people and organisations who have contributed to the delivery and development of the Product Design programme. Colleagues from the following Schools: • Mechanical Engineering, Electronic & Electrical Engineering, Civil Engineering, and Process Environmental and Materials Engineering within the Faculty of Engineering; • Leeds University Business School • Inter-Disciplinary Ethics Applied Centre The companies and organisations who have supported Level 3 and 4 projects: • Disruptive Innovation Ltd • Texecom Ltd • Marks & Spencer • Calderdale Council • National Instruments • Compact Caddy The visiting lecturers and project supervisors who have participated in the delivery of the programme: • Professor Jacques Giard (College of Design, Arizona State University, USA) • Dr Simon Schütte (Linköping University, Sweden) • Mr Matt Burtonwood, Open2 • Dr Rory O’Connor. Professor in Rehabilitation Medicine Testing, Medsim, University of Leeds
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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION Admissions If you are interested in the Product Design Course at the University of Leeds please contact the Product Design Undergraduate Admissions Team on 0113 343 2149 or visit www.engineering.leeds.ac.uk/ug Business Businesses interested in collaborating with us should contact Dan Trowsdale by: Phone 0113 343 8120 E-mail d.b.trowsdale@leeds.ac.uk
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