Limited Use Only: Exploring the Design of Everyday Objects for Upper Limb Stroke Rehabilitation

Overview

Stroke causes significant damage to the brain. Symptoms commonly affect one or both limbs on one side of the body. The preferential use of the less affected limb is called compensatory movement and it is a common phenomenon after a stroke, leading to learned non-use of the affected side. The aim of this study was to design everyday objects that can be used by chronic stroke survivors to initiate the use of the arm on the affected side to overcome learned non-use. Following a human-centred design approach, an understanding of the users’ needs was developed and different design solutions were produced and evaluated by stroke survivors and health professionals. Initial findings suggest that the object should remind the user to use the affected arm, and the movement needs to take account of the mental model that the user has of the object.

Keywords:

• stroke rehabilitation
• research through design
• initiation of use
• learned non-use
• chronic stroke patients
• human-centred design
• iterative design
• design theory

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my supervisors, Dr Edgar Rodríguez Ramírez from the School of Design at Victoria University of Wellington, and Dr Brian Robinson from the Graduate School of Nursing, Midwifery and Health at Victoria University of Wellington, whose input and support made this research possible.

I would further like to thank the therapists, stroke survivors, design students and designers who participated in this research and provided critical and valuable insights into the rehabilitation process and usability of the design concepts as well as into relevant strategies.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mailin Lemke

Mailin Lemke has a degree in scenography and graphic design from the University of Applied Sciences in Dortmund, followed by an MA in ‘Communication in space’ from the University of Applied Sciences in Mainz. She worked as an interface and graphic designer at the design studio ‘dreiform’ in Cologne, and enrolled in 2015 in a PhD programme focusing on medical device design at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand.