Research

The research phase outlines several methods carried out to gain a good understanding of the case owner’s needs and challenges. It details the literature research, interview and observations which resulted in identifying key problems the case owner faces and a defined design challenge.

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Literature Report - Summary 

The report describes the findings of the literacy research done to prepare for the project and gain information related to Duchenne. The found literature gives more insight on the topic of motor function and muscle strength and can be used later during the design process. For example, Duchenne is progressive, and the literature describes that the muscle strength in the arms will only become less. When designing, the literature can provide reasons to choose a specific concept over another or can be used to make something which can be used after a year. Click here to see the full report. 

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Research Question

How can the daily life of the case owner with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD) be improved? 

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Research Purpose

The aim of the research is to discover specific issues present in the daily life of the case owner and find effective means to improve or enhance their quality of life. 

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Timeline

The figures outline the general progression of individuals with Duchenne and the progression of Duchenne specific to the case owner.

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SUMMARY OF THE IntervieW INSIGHTS

The most important insights from the interview are the different possible challenges the CO encounters daily that could lead to design opportunities. 

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Hand bike coupling/decoupling 

The CO uses an electric wheelchair that can be coupled to a hand                                                                                    bike to traverse longer distances. To connect both parts, the                                                                                        wheelchair must be driven up to the hand bike and the handlebars                                                                              need to be pushed forwards which is too heavy for CO to do by                                                                                          himself. For decoupling, a lever (a repurposed bicycle brake lever)                                                                        situated vertically on the stem needs to be pushed, this also takes a                                                                                  lot of effort for CO to do by himself.

 

 

 

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Wet wrists while driving the wheelchair

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Due to the specific design of the wheelchair (wheels spaced wide                                                                              apart and vertical) and the effects of Duchenne (weaker muscles                                                                                  meaning he rests his arms on the tires more), CO has problems                                                                                        with his wrists getting wet when driving his wheelchair outside                                                                                            when it is wet. 

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Getting in and out of bed

CO now needs help from his mom and dad to get out of bed and                                                                                        into the wheelchair. He would like to be able to do this by himself.                                                                                After demonstrating how CO gets in and out of bed, the feasibility

was discussed and it was concluded with CO and his dad that doing                                                                                this would not be feasible.

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Footrest

CO must remove the footrests of his wheelchair when going out                                                                                      with the hand bike attached. Currently, there is no way to take the                                                                          footrests with him.  

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About the Family

During the interview several things about CO and his family became clear that are interesting going forward. 

The CO is, especially considering his age, comfortable and good at talking about his experiences. He doesn't mind showing how he does things and seems interested and excited to help. When asked if he is comfortable showing/telling something, he answers honestly and is comfortable saying no, which the family respects. There are several things that he does seem to struggle with that we should look out for: 

• He is not comfortable talking about how his condition is progressive and does not like to think about how it will develop in the future.  

• He is not comfortable talking about personal and physical aspects of his condition, like going to the toilet and washing up, this mainly seems to do with his age.  

 

CO also has ADHD, which allows him to talk very excitedly about things he experiences. It does also mean that he can stray off topic or show interest in unrelated topics.  

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The CO’s parents are pleasant people, they are welcoming and open to help by sharing insights and offering the space to visit or text them when the group deems fit. Their lives have been impacted quite severely by the condition of their son, since they now spend a lot of time tending to the various additional needs that a child with a disability has. However, this has not stopped them from enjoying life in a positive manner and they are hopeful about the future. They are involved actively in organizations with other parents of disabled children.  

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initial Design Challenge

With the conducted research, a design challenge was defined as follows.

How might we design a product for younger individuals with Duchenne in order to grant them more freedom, independence or comfort around using their wheelchair and/or hand bike? 

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List of RequirementS

After formulating the design challenge, an initial list of requirements could be drafted. This list was iteratively improved during the different phases of the project. This means that the list here is the full list of requirements made after iterating on it during the whole project. It started with a list of things the group saw as problems that needed to be solved for the case owner and problems the case owner and his parents mentioned themself. This was then rewritten to requirements. These only focussed on the coupling and decoupling of the hand bike to the wheelchair.
The problem of alignment was found during the test session. It was chosen to see the following as the main subject ‘making the case owner more independent when attaching/detaching his handbike’. Because this could be narrowed down into three different problems, which needed three different prototypes, which are a ‘coupling aid’, a ‘decoupling aid’ and a ‘allignment aid’, it was chosen to make three lists of requirements.
Where these three problems came from and more information about the issues with it can be found in the ideation and conceptualisation page.
Underneath here, the full list of requirements, after iterating based on the things mentioned here, is showN.

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Abbreviations used: 

• Case owner: CO

• Parents of case owner: POCO

• Industrial Design Engineering: IDE​