Designing Better Products For In-Home Care

Abstract

With a large portion of the population nearing old age, an increasing number of Canadians are receiving long-term care in their own homes for health conditions that are the result of aging and illness. In most cases, receiving care in the home requires the purchase and installation of various products and implements to facilitate mobility for the receiver of care, as well as caregiving activities. These products are designed from the basis of use in the setting of a health care facility and not the home. Therefore, their institutional aesthetic qualities are found to be un-homelike, and thus unsettling for their users as well as anyone else who shares the space they occupy. A new methodology is needed for the design of products for caregiving activities in the home. This methodology will be informed by models developed in the disciplines of Universal Design and Occupational Therapy to make these devices more comfortable, effective, and well-suited to the home environment. This methodology will be developed through the design of a commode chair.