Design research on self-service medical apparatus and instruments aiming at elderly users

Abstract

With the development of China’s society, the aging population has become a more serious problem, and old drift family has come to a common phenomenon. These old parents who live in lonely big cities are away from their own home and are cut from the original social support system as they have to take care of their children’s children, thus causing the loneliness of their mental life. And at the same time, they cannot travel conveniently like the young. What is even worse, some old parents are suffering from sugar (urine) disease, hypertension, heart disease and other chronic diseases, as a consequence, the high medical expense as well as their health condition cannot be monitored 24 h a day are causing headaches for them as they have no accessibility to local medical insurance. So, the research on the design of self help medical instrument products aim at the old is of great importance. In this paper, the severe aging population is set as the background. Then first and foremost, this paper studies the mental state, physiological state and the present status of the products aiming at aged people in domestic market, and analyzes the existing problems of the products for aged people, including slack development of the market, simplicity of service and the randomness of industry’s standard; second, based on theoretical knowledge, this paper analyzes the way old people studies, recognize the world and memorize things by referring to literature materials, also this paper analyzes the condition of using scientific and technological products of the old; at last, this paper analyzes the psychological and physical requirement of old people toward self help medical device based on survey and analysis, summarizing a more systematic design method which includes practicability, emotional, accessibility and security. This paper starts from a people-oriented point, targets the seniors as the target group and studies the design orientation of self help medical devices from a variety of aspects, trying to integrate the special requirements of old people with design elements of this kind of product and combining them with the design of the products to optimize the design of our products. These idea aims at reducing the hidden danger caused by wrong operation and makes it danger-free, giving them care, improving their well-being, leading a more comfortable and heather lifestyle and realizing the care for old citizens. Also, this paper also aims at finding a design method of this kind of product, summarizing the principles of design, breaking the original design patterns of self help medical devices and providing an example for designers.