Damage to the brain can lead to different types of long-term motor impairments like hemiplegia. Children with hemiplegia have difficulties performing everyday activities that rely on the coordinated use of both hands, such as feeding or dressing. Therefore, arm-hand therapy is important to improve the child’s motor skills to gain more independence in their daily life activities. Specialists usually recommend additional home therapy to maintain the skills and extend the therapeutic benefits. However in many cases, there is a lack of continuity of progress in the home environment. The problem with therapy is that it consists of repetitive exercises that a lot of kids may stop doing out of boredom. This project was approached with a user-centered design perspective to understand the field of rehabilitation in children with hemiplegia motor disabilities and explore how design can spark motivation and playfulness in this context. The solution was developed through extensive research including field research, observations, literature research and interviews with specialists from Sweden and Argentina as well as with parents. Several different design directions took shape during the process, they were then evaluated and validated with specialists, parents and tested with kids. The result of this project is a hybrid therapeutic toy composed of physical controllers and digital therapeutic games. By interacting with the controllers, children can improve their hand motor skills while playing different digital games designed to allow the repetition of hand movements with therapeutic effect. By turning repetitive training into playful therapy exercises, hemi makes long-term home therapy possible for children without thinking they are exercising.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:umu-198383 |
| Date | January 2022 |
| Creators | Ikebara, Natalia |
| Publisher | Umeå universitet, Designhögskolan vid Umeå universitet |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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