How to prevent falls in Elderly

Reflective journal

Reflective journal in 2^nd semester

20150102

Jungeun KIM

The research was started from my personal experience about my grandmother. Many elderly people are suffering from physical problems, even in this moment. And I found falls is one of the common issues out in elderly group, that is hip fracture which is the most fatal position when the bone is broken, it can lead to serious health problems even death. Among them, female elderly group are especially vulnerable, so I decided to identify cause of falls for female elderly and developing functional wear to reduce fall risk, I will describe significant feedbacks from meeting with Programme Committee and what I realized in that point.  

Firstly, one of the comments was I did a lots of work but there was no self-critical thought in my research process, think back for that time, I just focused on collecting user needs, I was busy to just conduct lots of interviews and other research ways, because, my goal was identifying cause of falls. I was embarrassed at that comment, I was not far-sighted enough to think of that. Self-critical thought is quite understandable thing for me, but I did not, I had to do self-question in some of areas, in terms of having deep understanding, among them, role-playing what I conducted in my research process to understand elderly inconvenience in directly was important to go forward second step for comprehensive study, I did not need to stop to just figure out causes of falls in elderly group, such as narrow step, aging eyes and lack of muscle, I did not ever think about why that was, why that happened, why it pained elderly group, if I had self-question at that time, I could develop an in-depth study more, which can be analyzed in many different thinking ways. Also when I conducted user interview to collect user needs for falls, I just stopped in first stage to collect user needs, for example, when one of the users told me that she wants to look younger, but I did not wonder why she want to look younger, and then I thought, sure, of course, everyone wants to look younger, that was it. If she has other reason, I missed the point that can be important role in my work.

Secondly, also developing the concept was one of the issue from feedback. That was, outcome of concept was focused too much on the physical problems of elderly, such as waterproof, silhouette, croth length and comfortable. even I already collected various user needs, that were categorized 3 section as emotional, social and physical. I think back for that time, I thought that my outcome would be functional wear to protect, so I started with fixed concept to protect hip fracture for female elderly and I worked backwards, I put suitable something together for protecting, my thought process was narrow, I had an obsession with final outcome to be protecting, and when I showed them my quick prototype, one of the committee member told me, you do not need to make a clothing, you can develop any other things such as a accessory, textile and whatever I want. Innovation and creativity are required of my work.   

Thirdly, in personal development portfolio, one of the feedback was different work style between 1st semester and 2^nd semester. In the first term, my concept was reducing food waste via mobile application, and I focused on ideation more than this semester, because, the research period was not enough, so I had to develop quick prototype in short time, think back that time, I enjoyed drawing something in my sketch book compare to investigate user needs by various research methods in 1^st semester, and then in this semester, I interested in collecting user needs, I like to meet someone to hear their real concerns in their life, and I really sympathized what they mentioned, so if I will be helpful for them, I had to make an effort to record all of the things what they said, what they did, because, if I miss something, that mean is I miss important insight from user. So I guess that might be reason why I got that comment. In 3^rd semester, after I will start an idea sketch as I did in last semester as focusing on phenomenon and I will ask simple question myself about that phenomenon and sketch, that is my ideation process, I will apply my ideation process to user needs in my research, such as some elderly fall in bath room, I focused on that phenomenon and I will just draw with given phenomenon. I do not need to concern about quality of ideation, do not think straight about outcome, just give expression to feelings.

Finally, one of the comments was it is good to meet another expert as doctor who is specialized in falls in elderly, I agree with that, I already had an interview with physical therapist about human body, but it was supporting user needs rather than medical knowledge. If I will develop functional wear to reduce fall risk, I need to deep understand mechanism of human body.

To sum up, I learned lots of significant things from feedbacks in programme committee meeting, it was meaningful time to think back to fundamental issues and any attempt to develop real outcome is going to have to in some way deal with those issues. The most impressive comment was I did not have self-critical thought in my research process, I was just recorder before I got assessments, if I did not get that comment, I never realized until now, I will just busy to collect data, same as 2^nd semester. From now I will be simple, I will be prompt to act as a below.

Identifying a phenomenon->Self-question->Ideation