Co-designing Personalised Assistive Technology

Summary

Assistive technology is an important tool in helping people maintain independence, allowing them to actively participate in education, work, and society. If maximised to its full potential there would be significant health and wellbeing benefits for individuals, reduced reliance on formal health and social care services and reduced healthcare costs. However, current equipment is often unsuitable in meeting an individual's needs. Previous review work by the research team highlighted issues with the design, function, and service provision of assistive technology as barriers to its use. Two specific barriers, a lack of equipment customisation and a lack of end-user involvement in the provision process, are the focus of this work.

This research aims to assess a new method that provides personalised assistive technology to individuals. The method will actively engage participants to input into the design of their own assistive device(s) to help them overcome their challenges of daily living. This method will help enable the device to be customized to their needs, a process known as co-design. Participants will be recruited from Swansea Bay University Health Board with a range of long-term physical health conditions whose current needs are unable to be met by current standard and off-the-shelf assistive technology solutions. Participants must be aged 18+ and currently living within the community.

Participants will be involved in up to 6 interactive sessions spread over 3 months with the researcher. In the initial session the researcher will work with the participants to identify challenges in daily living for the device to overcome. In subsequent sessions, the researcher will design different solutions for the participant to try and feedback on, enabling the design to be adapted to the participants needs. Finally, the participants will evaluate the device provided through questionnaires and individual semi-structured interviews. This feedback will help assess the effectiveness of co-design and its feasibility to be incorporated into future NHS services.

Conditions

• Disability or Chronic Disease Leading to Disablement

Interventions

DEVICE

Co-designing of personalised aids of daily living

In the initial session the researcher will work with the participants to identify challenges in daily living for the device to overcome. In between sessions the researcher will design and manufacture different solutions which will then be sent out for the participant to trial. The participant will then meet with the researcher to and feedback on the device provided. Feedback from the user is used to alter and improve the design of the device; new device(s) are then , enabling the design to be adapted to the participants needs. The process of design changes and feedback forms an iterative loop. This is expected to continue for 4-5 appointments over a period of serveral months until a final design is agreed upon. After the device is issue, both qualitative and quantitative outcome measures are provided to participants to complete, including questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. .

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Swansea Bay University Health Board

  collaborator OTHER

• Swansea University

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Jonathan Howard, PhD Student · Swansea University

Study Design

Allocation

NA

Purpose

OTHER

Masking

NONE

Model

SINGLE_GROUP

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2021-05-10

Primary Completion

2022-06-30

Completion

2022-09-30

Countries

• United Kingdom

Study Locations