HAND REHABILITATION SYSTEM DESIGN FOR STROKE
This project came from the project I involved in my internship at Philips. Later, I removed the core technology, reconstructed the project, and perfected it as a master's thesis. You can click here to check my thesis.
Role: UX Designer, User researcher
Duration: 08/2016-01/2017
Tools: Sketch, Protopie, Photoshop, Xmind
TARGET
At present in China, there are no mature hand rehabilitation products for stroke patient in the market. And the industry chain and service system have not been established.
• My graduate advisor advised me to research a forwark-looking topic for my thesis. First, establish a service system and business model for this type of product, and establish its commercial and social value.
• Under this service system, use reasonable research methods and combine current technology to make a complete product design.
SERVICE DESIGN
RESEARCH
Process & Results
Comparing the stroke rehabilitation model with abroad, I found that the Chinese 3 step rehabilitation system for stroke is not satisfactory.
I collected telemedicine information and found that personal tele-rehabilitation technology in the United States, Europe, Australia and other countries has entered people's home. However, due to the compensation system and business model in China, it is difficult to establish a complete telemedicine system;
By researching on the tele-rehabilitation system under the framework of the IoT, I found that we can divided IoT into intelligent sensing layer, the data transmission layer, the data analysis layer and the terminal device.
By analyzing the business models of some telemedicine systems, I found that the business models of telemedicine systems is different from developed and developing countries. (See thesis for details)
Opportunities and differences
Home Rehabilitation: Combine Chinese three-step stroke rehabilitation model with telemedicine and IoT. Patients use wearable products to monitor health in real time, and use rehab products to do rehabilitation training. The concept is suitable for telemedicine.
tele-rehabilitation platform: Our country could base on telemedicine system to establish tele-rehabilitation. Retain the technical advantages of the original telemedicine system. It could Introduce new functions if user need.
Business model: tele-rehabilitation platform is established by government funds.In terms of costs, the government, companies and individuals can share the burden to reduce the financial pressure on patients.
SERVICE SYSTEM
Service model & System model
User positioning: It includes user side, doctor side and administer side. For user side, its ultimate beneficiaries are stroke patients who need rehabilitation. But the users of the product are: patients, patient families, and family rehabilitation doctor.
Product system positioning: The tele-rehabilitation system platform is firstly a communication platform between doctors and patients. After expansion, it can be a platform that integrates information collection, storage, analysis, management, and transmission.
Service model: We define the tele-rehabilitation system as an open system that can collect, store, analyze and manage user
System model: Based on the government policy and financial support, the system model of stroke home rehabilitation products is constructed through the dimensions of users, doctors, and service providers. Through the analysis of funds flow, service flow, and information flow, make an explanation of the product system model: information. It has connection and other functions, and it can be embedded into the third-party products.
Business Model Canvas
Through the research of telemedicine system business models in developed and developing countries, I defined the telemedicine system business model as follows:
DESIGN RESEARCH
After defining the service model, I focused on the user side design. I defined the function, appearance, and interface system of user-side products through reasonable methods.
COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS
I selected 6 hand rehabilitation products: HandTutor, Music Glove, Neofect Raphael Smart Glove, BionessH200, Soft Robotic, Gloreha. These products come from non-profit research institutions funded by university research and fund organizations, and some internationally famous medical device companies.
Compare with medical rehabilitation products, home rehabilitation products often have lower cost, easy operation and high entertainment;
The common feature of active movement products is combine sensor with HMI for rehabilitation training. The difference is that some products use virtual reality interface, or use hand function evaluation and games as an integrated interface, or both;
Passive movement products use a variety of methods to help patients move their hands through electromyography or using exoskeleton.
OBSERVATION
I selected 3 places to observe and study stroke patients and their families: Neurology clinic of Hua Shan Hospital, stroke inpatient department of Hua Shan Hospital and Tian Shan Park.
Conclusion:
There is still have development space of medical data storage and online consultation.
Home and rehabilitation hospitals are the main places where patients do rehabilitation training.
Cognitive recovery is one of the rehabilitation issues faced by stroke patients.
Safety is an important issue for patients in rehabilitation. Patients need their family support and encouragement.
We need to consider the unique symptoms and physiological characteristics of patients with stroke and hemiplegia when I design the product.
INTERVIEW
This interview is a non-structured interview. I selected five stroke patients for interviews. Patients with milder symptoms and younger age can talk directly, while some patients with more severe symptoms can be answered by family members.
Interviews with rehabilitation therapists are mainly to understand the content and process of rehabilitation training.
By visiting the rehabilitation therapist at Hua Shan Hospital, I understand that they need to use relevant scales to assess patients' rehabilitation at first. Then, according to the results of the assessment, therapist will arrange the corresponding rehabilitation training.
Rehabilitation scales often used in clinical practice include: Modified Ashworth Scale, Brunnstrom Hemiplegia Motor Function Status Scale, Fugl-Meyer Assessment (FMA), Motor Function Status Scale (MSS), and Hand Motor Function Status Scale.
Interview Results
The interview results showed:
Stroke rehabilitation needs professional guidance from a doctor;
Patients who can be cared for by their children or partners generally choose home rehabilitation;
Severe agnosia and hemiplegia patient need their family support day and night;
The patient's work, social, family relationships, and psychology will have a great change after being sick;
It can be learned from the psychological changes of patients that they all have anxiety after illness, and more severe patients also have depression and suicidal behavior
PERSONA
Based on the previous observations and research, we define a persona from basic information, living conditions, and rehabilitation.
STORYBOARD
Then, I draw a storyboard based on the persona. Story scenarios can better translate research results into design scheme.
DESIGN REQUIREMENTS
Through the above research, we can draw some conclusions, and the conclusions of each part can give me some design inspiration:
Stroke home hand rehabilitation products use a combination of active and passive movements, which is a combination of sensors and electrical stimulation.
User Interface use virtual reality technology as a game module. Sensors are the core of motion capture technology. And electrical stimulation is an auxiliary technology.
The hardware system can be divided into two parts: a monitoring module and a rehabilitation module, which are combined into one during rehabilitation training.
The software system is embedded in the game module, and a scoring incentive system is implemented.
Big data cloud service is used to the remote rehabilitation system for storing and transmitting user data.
The content of rehabilitation training are used as a reference for rehabilitation games.
DESIGN
PRODUCT DESIGN
Stroke home hand rehabilitation products use a modular design. The product is divided into three parts, gloves, smart bracelet and electrical stimulation arm.
The smart bracelet and gloves are standard. Due to the different types of stroke and sequelae, the electric stimulation arm is determined by the doctor based on the actual situation of the patient. With the development of product types, the variety of products can be increased. Doctors can choose the suitable rehabilitation plan for patients. (See thesis for details)
INTERFACE DESIGN
Through the study of the service model, the software product should be an independent application for users to download in the application store. The software should have doctor's side, patient's side, and management side. Due to time constraints, I only designed the patient side application. The design uses the iPad side as an example.
Mindmap
Login
In the first login process, after the user enters identity information and login, database matched user's information. After the user confirms and the rehabilitation physician evaluates, the application is ready to use.
Framework
The tele-rehabilitation system is divided into four modules: homepage, inquiry, knowledge base, and mine. "Homepage" contains the rehabilitation training and assessment training that users must use in daily life; "Inquiry" helps patients to quickly connect with the attending physician, rehabilitation physician, etc., which can be expanded into more inquiry functions in the future; "Knowledge Base" contains some Rehabilitation information, drug information, etc .; "Mine" covers personal information, training reports, evaluation reports, etc.
Wireframe
UI Design
SUMMARY
First attempt: This is my first attempt at service design and UX design. My thoughts on the service system only come from my experience during the internship and the research of some literature. Because of the graduation design, the product positioning is relatively advanced. At present, the realizability still remains to be discussed. After my full time job, I redesign the interface. But it was not perfect because of time. But I believe that my knowledge is growing, and I keep learning and progressing. I will continue to improve this subject in the future, because I believe that subject is a meaningful topic in Internet medicine. I hope my design can help more people.
Interdisciplinary: This is an interdisciplinary subject. During the research, I met doctors and physiatrician. I also learned about the rehabilitation process, rehabilitation training, and rehabilitation assessment of stroke patients. How to understand the medical principles and apply them to the design is also a difficult things for this project. Through communicating with doctors, discussing with colleagues, and researching and talking with classmates, they also brought a lot of valuable inspirations to me.