How can we increase
physiotherapy adherence?
Designing and testing an intervention that seamlessly integrates a tennis elbow physiotherapy exercise into daily life to increase long-term exercise adherence
Master's Thesis
9 months
Summary
The aim of this project is to develop a solution to increase adherence to at-home physiotherapy exercises. For that a tennis elbow wrist exercise is seamlessly integrated into the daily activity of washing hands through an adapted soap dispenser, The design process was informed by seamless intervention theories and involving physiotherapists. The hi-fi prototype was tested during a 10-day at-home user test. The seamless approach turns out to be well received while acknowledging restraints on suitable activity-exercise combinations.
Main methods: interviews, ideation methods, multi-day user study
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The goal is to avoid conflicting long vs short-term motivation and forgetfulness. The most suitable long-term intervention entails:
Seamless integration of the exercise into an existing habit
Requiring the exercise to achieve the habit goal
Minimizing complexity and necessary attention
for suitable exercise-activity combinations were ideated in three sessions using:
A day in a life
Mash-up
Mindmapping
A requirements and user-scenario analysis narrowed the selection down to three most promising concepts:
Exercise + Computer mouse
Exercise + Door handle
Exercise + Soap dispensing
The lo-fi prototypes were presented to two physiotherapists. Informed through their feedback the soap dispenser was chosen as the most suitable concept.
The hi-fi prototype which is used for testing includes a soap dispensing system and an Arduino with proximity sensors to facilitate:
1) Performing the exercise
2) Minimal movement resistance
3) Dispensing Soap
4) Counting and saving repetitions
To evaluate how well the concept integrates with the user's daily life a
including a repeated questionnaire, use data and retrospective interviews was conducted with 5 healthy participants.
participants viewed stated that the necessity to perform the exercise to dispense soap avoided forgetfulness and procrastination.
Prolonged activity duration and being uncomfortable grabbing the handle with dirty hands were the biggest remarks.
Reflection and Learnings
This project showed me the importance of multidisciplinary design and the involvement of experts and users during all design steps. The interviews with physiotherapists gave me information on common exercise practices and how they can be translated to a new design. For that it was very beneficial to bring lo-fi prototypes as their thinking and feedback is naturally more embodied.
I would have liked to involve the user earlier in the design stage, this could have prevented design flaws in terms of the exercise-activity combinations much earlier in the process. Unfortunately the time constraints did not allow for multiple moments of user involvement. Yet it is an important learning.
