scholarly journals Virtual Coaching for Rehabilitation: The Participatory Design Experience of the vCare Project

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Agnese Seregni ◽  
Enrica Tricomi ◽  
Peppino Tropea ◽  
Rocio Del Pino ◽  
Juan Carlos Gómez-Esteban ◽  
...  

End-user involvement constitutes an essential goal during the development of innovative solution, not only for the evaluation, but also in codesign, following a user-centered strategy. Indeed, it is a great asset of research to base the work in a user-centered approach, because it allows to build a platform that will respond to the real needs of users. The aims of this work are to present the methodology adopted to involve end-users (i.e., neurological patients, healthy elderly, and health professionals) in the evaluation of a novel virtual coaching system based on the personalized clinical pathways and to present the results obtained from these preliminary activities. Specific activities involving end-users were planned along the development phases and are referred to as participatory design. The user experience of participatory design is constituted by the two different phases: the “end-user's perspective” phase where the user involvement in experiential activities is from an observational point of view, whereas the “field study” phase is the direct participation in these activities. Evaluation tools (i.e., scales, questionnaires, and interviews) were planned to assess different aspects of the system. Thirty patients [14 with poststroke condition and 16 with Parkinson's disease (PD)], 13 healthy elderly, and six health professionals were enrolled from two clinical centers during the two phases of participatory design. Results from “end-user's perspective” phase showed globally a positive preliminary perception of the service. Overall, a positive evaluation (i.e., UEQ median score > 1) was obtained for each domain of the scale in both groups of patients and healthy subjects. The evaluation of the vCare system during the “field study” phase was assessed as excellent (>80 points) from the point of view of both patients and health professionals. According to the majority of patients, the rehabilitation service through the solution was reported to be interesting, engaging, entertaining, challenging and useful for improving impaired motor functions, and making patients aware of their cognitive abilities. Once refined and fine-tuned in the aspects highlighted in the this work, the system will be clinically tested at user's home to measure the real impact of the rehabilitative coaching services.

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Ospina-Pinillos ◽  
Tracey A Davenport ◽  
Cristina S Ricci ◽  
Alyssa C Milton ◽  
Elizabeth M Scott ◽  
...  

BACKGROUND Each year, many young Australians aged between 16 and 25 years experience a mental health disorder, yet only a small proportion access services and even fewer receive timely and evidence-based treatments. Today, with ever-increasing access to the Internet and use of technology, the potential to provide all young people with access (24 hours a day, 7 days a week) to the support they require to improve their mental health and well-being is promising. OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to use participatory design (PD) as research methodologies with end users (young people aged between 16 and 25 years and youth health professionals) and our research team to develop the Mental Health eClinic (a Web-based mental health clinic) to improve timely access to, and better quality, mental health care for young people across Australia. METHODS A research and development (R&D) cycle for the codesign and build of the Mental Health eClinic included several iterative PD phases: PD workshops; translation of knowledge and ideas generated during workshops to produce mockups of webpages either as hand-drawn sketches or as wireframes (simple layout of a webpage before visual design and content is added); rapid prototyping; and one-on-one consultations with end users to assess the usability of the alpha build of the Mental Health eClinic. RESULTS Four PD workshops were held with 28 end users (young people n=18, youth health professionals n=10) and our research team (n=8). Each PD workshop was followed by a knowledge translation session. At the conclusion of this cycle, the alpha prototype was built, and one round of one-on-one end user consultation sessions was conducted (n=6; all new participants, young people n=4, youth health professionals n=2). The R&D cycle revealed the importance of five key components for the Mental Health eClinic: a home page with a visible triage system for those requiring urgent help; a comprehensive online physical and mental health assessment; a detailed dashboard of results; a booking and videoconferencing system to enable video visits; and the generation of a personalized well-being plan that includes links to evidence-based, and health professional–recommended, apps and etools. CONCLUSIONS The Mental Health eClinic provides health promotion, triage protocols, screening, assessment, a video visit system, the development of personalized well-being plans, and self-directed mental health support for young people. It presents a technologically advanced and clinically efficient system that can be adapted to suit a variety of settings in which there is an opportunity to connect with young people. This will enable all young people, and especially those currently not able or willing to connect with face-to-face services, to receive best practice clinical services by breaking down traditional barriers to care and making health care more personalized, accessible, affordable, and available.


Author(s):  
Ina Wagner

Participatory design has a strong moral and political commitment to including users in all design decisions from the start of a project. Hence, the ambition of participatory designers reaches beyond mere user involvement. Many of the creative participatory techniques the participatory-design community has developed have spread out. However, in spite of an impressive list of inspiring projects and major contributions to design practice, participatory design remains somewhat marginal. This chapter aims to identify why this might be so. It also looks at recent developments, such as the design of IT infrastructures, collaboration with marginalized groups, and extending participation to communities.


Author(s):  
Yannick van Hierden ◽  
Timo Dietrich ◽  
Sharyn Rundle-Thiele

In recent years, the relevance of eHealth interventions has become increasingly evident. However, a sequential procedural application to cocreating eHealth interventions is currently lacking. This paper demonstrates the implementation of a participatory design (PD) process to inform the design of an eHealth intervention aiming to enhance well-being. PD sessions were conducted with 57 people across four sessions. Within PD sessions participants experienced prototype activities, provided feedback and designed program interventions. A 5-week eHealth well-being intervention focusing on lifestyle, habits, physical activity, and meditation was proposed. The program is suggested to be delivered through online workshops and online community interaction. A five-step PD process emerged; namely, (1) collecting best practices, (2) participatory discovery, (3) initial proof-of-concept, (4) participatory prototyping, and (5) pilot intervention proof-of-concept finalisation. Health professionals, behaviour change practitioners and program planners can adopt this process to ensure end-user cocreation using the five-step process. The five-step PD process may help to create user-friendly programs.


Information ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 13
Author(s):  
Thierry Bellet ◽  
Aurélie Banet ◽  
Marie Petiot ◽  
Bertrand Richard ◽  
Joshua Quick

This article is about the Human-Centered Design (HCD), development and evaluation of an Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithm aiming to support an adaptive management of Human-Machine Transition (HMT) between car drivers and vehicle automation. The general principle of this algorithm is to monitor (1) the drivers’ behaviors and (2) the situational criticality to manage in real time the Human-Machine Interactions (HMI). This Human-Centered AI (HCAI) approach was designed from real drivers’ needs, difficulties and errors observed at the wheel of an instrumented car. Then, the HCAI algorithm was integrated into demonstrators of Advanced Driving Aid Systems (ADAS) implemented on a driving simulator (dedicated to highway driving or to urban intersection crossing). Finally, user tests were carried out to support their evaluation from the end-users point of view. Thirty participants were invited to practically experience these ADAS supported by the HCAI algorithm. To increase the scope of this evaluation, driving simulator experiments were implemented among three groups of 10 participants, corresponding to three highly contrasted profiles of end-users, having respectively a positive, neutral or reluctant attitude towards vehicle automation. After having introduced the research context and presented the HCAI algorithm designed to contextually manage HMT with vehicle automation, the main results collected among these three profiles of future potential end users are presented. In brief, main findings confirm the efficiency and the effectiveness of the HCAI algorithm, its benefits regarding drivers’ satisfaction, and the high levels of acceptance, perceived utility, usability and attractiveness of this new type of “adaptive vehicle automation”.


2012 ◽  
Vol 204-208 ◽  
pp. 2721-2725
Author(s):  
Hua Ji Zhu ◽  
Hua Rui Wu

Village land continually changes in the real world. In order to keep the data up-to-date, data producers need update the data frequently. When the village land data are updated, the update information must be dispensed to the end-users to keep their client-databases current. In the real world, village land changes in many forms. Identifying the change type of village land (i.e. captures the semantics of change) and representing them in the data world can help end-users understand the change commonly and be convenient for end-users to integrate these change information into their databases. This work focuses on the model of the spatio-temporal change. A three-tuple model CAR for representing the spatio-temporal change is proposed based on the village land feature set before change and the village land feature set after change, change type and rules. In this model, the C denotes the change type. A denotes the attribute set; R denotes the judging rules of change type. The rule is described by the IF-THEN expressions. By the operations between R and A, the C is distinguished. This model overcomes the limitations of current methods. And more, the rules in this model can be easy realized in computer program.


2016 ◽  
pp. 8
Author(s):  
Ahmed Hamza Ghadbane ◽  
Chalabi Walid ◽  
Khodja Bacem ◽  
Fathi Belghoul ◽  
Tahar Briki

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mette Juel Rothmann ◽  
Julie Drotner Mouritsen ◽  
Nanna Skov Ladefoged ◽  
Marie Nedergaard Jespersen ◽  
Anna Sofie Lillevang ◽  
...  

BACKGROUND Video consultation is increasingly used in different healthcare settings in order to reach patients. However, little is known about telehealth in psychological treatment for patients with somatic and chronic conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis and diabetes. OBJECTIVE This study aims to provide new insight into the development of an app to support the psychological treatment and video based intervention. METHODS This study was inspired by participatory design and a qualitative approach. The content of the intervention was developed through user involvement and evaluated by individual interviews with patients and psychologists as well as questionnaires. RESULTS We co-created an app that targeted patients with rheumatic diseases and diabetes in relation to the psychological challenges of living with chronic diseases. Video based interventions was described under the four themes “The good relation despite physical distance”, “The comfort of being at home”, “The pros of saving time on transport and energy” and “A therapeutic alliance at a distance”. CONCLUSIONS Psychological treatment in relation to somatic care can be provided by video and supported by tailored information and tools delivered in an app without losing quality of care. To ensure a good alliance between the patient and the psychologist, a first face-to-face meeting is important. Being in their own home provided the patients with a safe environment, increased accessibility, and reduced travel time to the hospital.


1897 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 485-549
Author(s):  
M. Gaster

More marvellous and more remarkable than the real conquests of Alexander are the stories circulated about him, and the legends which have clustered round his name and his exploits. The history of Alexander has, from a very early period, been embellished with legends and tales. They spread from nation to nation during the whole of the ancient times, and all through the Middle Ages. Many scholars have followed up the course of this dissemination of the fabulous history of Alexander. It would, therefore, be idle repetition of work admirably done by men like Zacher, Wesselofsky, Budge, and others, should I attempt it here. All interested in the legend of Alexander are familiar with those works, where also the fullest bibliographical information is to be found. I am concerned here with what may have appeared to some of these students as the bye-paths of the legend, and which, to my mind, has not received that attention which is due to it, from more than one point of view. Hitherto the histories of Alexander were divided into two categories; the first were those writings which pretended to give a true historical description of his life and adventures, to the exclusion of fabulous matter; the other included all those fabulous histories in which the true elements were smothered under a great mass of legendary matter, the chief representative of this class being the work ascribed to a certain Callisthenes. The study of the legend centred in the study of the vicissitudes to which this work of (Pseudo-) Callisthenes had been exposed, in the course of its dissemination from the East, probably from its native country, Egypt, to the countries of the West.


2018 ◽  
Vol 23 (6) ◽  
pp. 265-268 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leopold-Michael Marzi

We should use the word “Health Care Safety” instead of “Patient Safety,” because in cases of malpractice the people who are in charge of treatment of patients can be “second victims.” The typical damage case occurs to an above-average employee in a risk-prone discipline after working in the job for 20 years often between Friday afternoon and Sunday more often in the months of January, March or July due to a preceding communication error and a missing assertiveness of a person who is involved in the case. Very often, health professionals do not know how to react in case of malpractice or emergency from a legal point of view. The patient or his family contact a lawyer immediately, but who helps the health professionals to cope with the case? The Vienna General Hospital (VGH) is one of the biggest in the world. In 1999, the project “Risk Management” was initiated by the Legal Department. The aim at this time was: “Minus 50% concerning cases and more than 50% less costs in the next ten years (2000–2010).” In 2010, the aim was reached and the positive trend is still continuing, but how did it work? The VGH in cooperation with the Vienna Insurance Group created a complete new form of quick help in case of emergency: the so-called “Legal Emergency Kit.” It represents a handy plastic case on which a paragraph is stamped. A special checklist tells what to do in case of legal emergency. The legal practitioner of the VGH can be called at any time via mobile phone. The malpractice cases are analysed in a retrospective damage analysis, which helps to avoid errors and damages in the future.


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