Innovative Product Design for Hand-muscle Weakness Therapy in the Elderly People

Abstract

Currently, the structure of population all over the world seems to become more of aging society. Elderly people in Thailand are rapidly increasing in number as well and this affects many aspects of the country, including economics and society. More than 40% of health degrading problems make the elderly become dependent on others because they are unable to help themselves. Weakening of hand muscle from aging is caused by the damage of muscles or tendons directly related to the movement of hands and fingers. The weakening happens gradually; sometimes it can be temporary symptom and sometimes it can become more severe. Designing products for occupational therapy of hand muscle exercising in elderly people originates from the idea of decelerating the weakening of the hand muscle to enable the elderly to live and do day-to-day activities more conveniently so they may have better quality of life. The process of designing consists of: interviewing about the needs of 10 elderly persons, and using the inspiration from the shape of Siamese fighting fish to specify the size and the usage of the product. This type of fish has strong fighting instinct. It symbolizes obstacles fighting in the past experience of a person. The color and swimming manner of the fish were also used as the inspiration in designing the products according to 3 types of occupational therapy. Then, the products were tested and satisfaction of users was evaluated after 3 product prototypes had been used. Percentage calculation was used in analyzing the data from the questionnaire. As for the analysis of data from satisfaction evaluation form, the researcher used statistical method of finding mean and standard deviation (S.D.). It was found that the product “neck-supporting pillow” received the highest satisfaction (x=4.6) (S.D. = 0.69). The product “plier” received second highest satisfaction (x=4.5) (S.D. = 0.59). The product “knuckle” received high satisfaction (x=4.3) (S.D. = 0.60). Therefore, this designing resulted in the products for hand muscle exercising that can effectively decelerate the weakening of hand muscle in elderly people.