Author: mmorris58
Shadowing in the Occupational Therapy Clinic:Shadowing in the Occupational Therapy Clinic:
One of my favorite aspects of Design and Innovation has been the opportunity to shadow medical professionals across a variety of disciplines. Throughout the semester, I spent time in the autism clinic, the NICU and with an occupational therapist specializing in developmental pediatrics. Although they all were interesting, the occupational therapy session was unique in its hands on level of patient engagement. Jennifer Kraus generously allowed Sanaa and I to sit in during one of her weekly sessions with a 6 year-old girl whose genetic disorder resulted in dyspraxic behavior. Although non-verbal, the girl was extremely engaged and for the most part enthusiastically willing to do all the activities Ms. Kraus planned. I know it sounds cheesy, but this experience truly expanded my understanding of how much patience and commitment these professionals bring to their work everyday. From the patient’s mother, we also learned what an enormous difference these sessions can make in a child life in a relatively short span of time. When the patient began her sessions with Ms. Kraus she preferred to travel almost exclusively my crawling and was unable to purse her lips at all. After a little less than a year, the girl we observed was able to push her self on a swing, jump over obstacles on the floor and blow pom-poms through a straw.
With regards to our particular design, it was interesting to see what aspects of the grasping motion were most difficult for the patient seemed. Although this child was not yet writing or drawing, Ms. Kraus did have her do a variety of fine motor exercises with pegs and cones. From my perspective it seemed as though the application of pressure to a specific location was particular arduous, this understandably is a skill necessary for writing. After the session, Ms. Kraus was generous enough to give us even more of her time and answer all our questions about her experience with dyspraxia. She, like others we found on the Internet, expressed discontent with the grips and pencils available on the current market. She as of now usually just opts to tell children to switch to computers early on. Since we were hoping our design would eventually give children access to artistic and athletic hobbies previously inaccessible to them, we felt that it would still be able to serve a purpose computers could not.
Low fidelity Prototyping:
After a few weeks of brainstorming leading to needs assessment and definition eventually leading to less abstract design and sketching, my teammates and I finally felt as though we were ready to start making stuff! This was very exciting, we were finally living up to the title of “maker,” that everyone seems to be applying to all engineering-esque fields these days.
We got in the lab and started immediately messing around with clay, Popsicle sticks, pipe cleaners and rubber bands, pretty much any and all the supplies available to us in MR-4. Rubber band turned out to be a great way to make temporary joint connections that were easily adjustable, Pipe cleaners excelled in making shapes fit specifically to the unique curvature of the hand, and clay perfect way to add extra weight to parts of the device we wanted children to know should rest on the table during writing. We were particularly lucky to be working on a design that we could test to some extent on ourselves. Although our hands, for the most part, are much larger than a child’s (perhaps maybe not Sanaa’s…) and none of us have experienced dyspraxia, we were still able to fit the devices to the shape of our hands and assess the relative comfort of various writing positions.
The low cost of materials was also great because it allowed us to try out a almost all of the ideas we had been exploring. These mock-ups may have not been perfect or exact in any sense, but they were enormously valuable in helping else determine which of our potential designs was the most viable for further testing. It also helped us gain a better understanding of the 3-dimensional structure of each design and whether or not 3-D printing would be the right method for constructing the actual prototype. In the end we ended up deciding to pursue a design that consisted of a single plastic element that curved around the back of child’s knuckles to a weighted foot meant to glide along the paper during writing. The device would be laser cut from plastic in flat form and then heated to bend to its final shape.
Reflection on videos and the semester over all:
Today marked the completion of BME Design and Innovation in Medicine with each design team sharing a short video that conveyed their device, its purpose, and the journey they took in order to produce it. This experience proved to be valuable in a few ways. On one level, it was so interesting to finally see what all my classmates had been working on all semester. I was really impressed by all my classmates, with their gloves powered by automatic motors, mocked up app interfaces, and more. Simultaneously, I also loved seeing how my classmates approached the video process. Although I was initially very intimidated by the video project, in ended up being a great opportunity to explore an entirely new way of conveying information. It gave me a chance to get familiar with iMovie and was also examine my own presentation skills on camera, which although sometimes unpleasant, was definitely a valuable exercise in self-awareness.
The videos my peers presented were unanimously impressive. Many deftly employed the time lapsed white board technique we learned about in class. After hearing comments from our reviewers, it seems as though this technique maybe the clearest and most aesthetic way to present the complex narrative of the design process. It’s also extremely easy to implement and requires no one’s face to be on camera. I imagine this is knowledge I will definitely utilize in the future.
The applicable knowledge, in my experience, has been the one constant theme running through the diverse concepts explored in this class. We touched on everything from architecture to story telling, to personal health, to breaking into the field of professional design. Our lessons were very wide in scope, but I think there will be at least one thing from every class that will prove to be valuable in the future. Over all I am so glad I took this class and can’t wait to explore design thinking more in the future.
Maddie’s First Post
Hello all! My name is Maddie Morris and I’m a BME, hopefully also minoring in English. At UVa, I volunteer with GEMS at Jack Jouett middle school and I’m on the engineering student council health and wellness committee. I also just started interning for a company called Open BioLabs, started by a UVa grad.
Right now I’ll admit that I’m not entirely sure what I want to do with my life, although I’m sure thats true for others in this class as well. Obviously, I’ve always enjoyed math and science oriented subjects, but I’ve also had a life long personal interest in art and aesthetics in general. I’m hoping that through advanced design I will be able to form a link between these two ways of thinking. A link that hopefully will help me better identify the career I’d like to seek out after graduation.
Those goals might seem a little lofty, haha. Still, I think that no matter what, this semester is going to be a very valuable experience, and I’m excited to see whats in store for all of us!
BME Design 