Inspires to go

10 August 2022 Projects

In this project, we were tasked to design and create a prototype for an innovative product/service to inspire elderly persons with dementia to move.

The product should also work as a platform to unite grandchildren with the elderly, and build on a health promoting, user and resource-centered way of thinking.

1. Goals:

2. Methods:

3. Findings:

During our interviews, we gathered a lot of information regarding the residents’ daily lives, interests, activities etc. Due to their condition and age, they are not able to perform all of the activities listed under anymore, but we still view this as valuable user insight.

3.1 Inspirational Actions:

3.2 User Contexts:

3.3 Users:

4. Concept:

Our final concept consists of a combination of two of our previous ideas, that the staff suggested we should merge into one:

  1. An interactive activity pillow with different items to fiddle with.
  2. An interactive kind of game in the hallway, where the goal is to take care of a robotic cat, and make it happy by taking it through different stations.

Combined, we ended up with the following concept:

Activity pillow + corridor interactive system

Figure: Illustration of the Activity Pillow and corridor interactive system

5 Prototypes:

We made several different pillows to demonstrate our concept. The reason that we made more than one was due to discussions regarding the concept, wanting to try different things, but also due to last-minute changes. In an ideal product, the different pillows would have been combined into one.

The pillows are made up by soft fabric. Pillow 1 is covered in various items, such as pockets, buttons, pompoms, zippers and LEDs. If user gets bored, he/she can simply place the pillow on their lap, and fiddle with the various items on it. This pillow also includes a strap that the user can attach around his/her body. This is convenient for those who do not use a walker, but do not want to hold on to the pillow at all times. The strap can be hidden inside a compartment when it is not in use.

The LEDs are activated by pushing a pressure sensor. The sensor is marked by a heart on the pillow, so that the user will know where to push. The pressure sensor and the LEDs are connected to an Arduino inside the pillow, which is powered by a battery.

Photo: Prototype of pillow 1. With various fabrics, items to fiddle with, and a convenient strap.
Totoro
Photo: Prototype of pillow 2.
Photo: Walking with pillow 2.