Reflective journal in May
20150102
Jungeun KIM
The research aim is identifying cause of falls for
female elderly and developing functional wear to reduce fall risk, and in this
stage, I made a prototype to protect hip fracture but still I’m developing hip
protector, and I don’t want to narrow down the touch point as just hip
protector, so also I’m extending ideation too.
Overall, research process almost finish, but further
investigation was still under way such as interview with doctor and
observation. Some issues from observation in a nurshing home made me to change
my mind about target area in my research. I will describe significant insight
below.
After 2nd semester, I visited a nurshing
home, because one of expert advised me about my prototype which can protect a
hip fracture from falls.
One of the meaningful advise was that I just
focused on normal elderly who don’t need to care in daily life, but falls is
more dangerous for elderly group who are in need, who has serious problem with
mobility, their bone could be broken easily more than normal elderly group who
are active, because the loss in bone mineral density can lead to osteoporosis,
so it means, hip protector which I am developing can be more necessary for the
elderly in the bed from falls, so I want to figure out the real user and how
hip protector is necessity in elderly who are in need.
But when I got there, I realized that I can’t do
any thing in there, because it was first time to go the nurshing home for me,
before I got there, I imagined there atmosphere is calm and peaceful and I
didn’t have any concern about conducting a interview, but place wasn’t calm what
I imagined, there was an serious atmosphere, I think, not only me but also no
one could do any thing because of heavy mood.
Let me describe that situation, first when I
entered a one room, there are 6 of beds, 6 patients, two of them were crying
and one of them are screaming, and other people are lying with eyes remain
open.
Later, nurse told me, two of them have an Alzheimer
and four of them have osteoporosis and they have falls experience before, so
they need to wear it, but in terms of nurse, they have to reposition a patient frequently
to prevent bedsores and other things such as shower, so hip protector is tricky
to wear for them.
Truthfully, at first, I was really scared, but just
a few minutes later, I was so depressed, I was deeply moved by their situation.
It was totally different situation compare to existing interview group,
existing interviewees were active and normal, they weren’t any different from
previously thought about elderly group. But, in nurshing home, there were no
energy, lifeless was only broken by the ticking of the clock, naturally all the
people are degenerated and weak by aging, even in this moment, also I’m not far
from this situation.
In this point, I thought about there is a gap
between real needs and real user.
Real user who have falls experience before is
difficult and late to wear hip protector as elderly who I met in nurshing home,
but reals needs is to looks younger by hip protector from research in daycare
center. After that, when I worried about correlation between real needs and
real user, the lecturer put me in the way of achieving my goals in class. She
advised me “how about changing persona ages younger?” I agreed with her
opinion, it is good to attract them to prevent falls by good-looking product
and also protection, because from the research, when elderly have an accident, it
is already too late to turn back.
To sum up,
‘during’ protection, such as plenty of cushioning and support in functional
wear is important to avoid fatal injuries but also ‘before’ prevention play a
key role as much as protection in falls in elderly.
