Prototype based on "Prototype 5"
Changes:
- There's a wooden plank and some cords attached to the pillow. We will use these to fix the pillow to the table.
- We also added some more velcro on the bandage, to have a stronger force. This way the velcro will come off less easily by the force of her arm.
We didn't change the kind of textile used for the bandage, 'cause we did a test if it would hurt her (by putting our own arm in the prototype and giving a lot of force), and it doesn't hurt.
Test (07/04/'16)
We couldn't test it yet
Expected positive: Unexpected positive: Expected negative: Unexpected negative: Score: Brenda/ Tiene gave us a score of ... /10
Prototype based on "Prototype 4"
In this prototype, we changed the idea of working with loops. Tiene suggested that we could use something like the fork we showed her (see post of "Prototype 4"). This gives less tension to her hand/ fingers than "Prototype 4". The surface of the spoon is also smaller, because Tiene said that the surface of the spoon we brought last time was too big for Brenda's mouth.
Test (07/04/'16) Expected positive:
- Smaller surface
- She can't lose the spoon
Unexpected positive:
- It's easy to remove from her hand (although she can't lose it), so she can still drink between her meal
Expected negative:
- Brenda doesn't like the ducttape, so she didn't want to eat with it
- No plastic for the spoon surface (Tiene prefers coated metal)
Unexpected negative:
/
Score: Brenda/ Tiene gave us a score of 8 / 10
Suggestion from Tiene: make a spoon like this, but with wood and maybe K3 on the band (because Brenda is a huge fan of Studio100) and she'll be more enthusiast to eat with it.
Prototype based on "Prototype 8"
Tiene recommended using a flat handle, so the spoon wouldn't twist in Brenda's hand. We used the same loops as "Prototype 8" (but a little bit bigger, because it was difficult to get her fingers in the loops). The surface of the spoon is a bit smaller, 'cause Tiene said that the surface of the other prototype was too big for Brenda's mouth.
Test (07/04/'16):
We couldn't test the prototype, but these are some comments we got:
Expected positive:
- Smaller surface
Unexpected positive:
/ Expected negative: - Brenda doesn't like the ducktape
- No plastic spoons (Tiene prefers coated metal)
Unexpected negative:
/ Score: Brenda/ Tiene gave us a score of 7 / 10
Tiene thinks we should work on "Prototype 5" (other textile and a way to attach it to the table), on "Prototype 7" (maybe other materials or another method, but we still need to see the result of how it goes now), and on "Prototype 4 or 8" (we might use the loops, but think of some other methods too, also keep in mind that the spoon needs to be coated, and that surface can't be too big).
We don't need to work further on "Prototype 6", because Brenda really didn't like that one.
Prototype based on "Prototype 4"
We did some minor change when we were visting Brenda. Because in the last prototype ("Prototype 4"), it was really difficult to get her fingers into the loops. So we cut away two loops so that she only needs to put 2 fingers into the prototype.
We couldn't try it yet today (because she didn't want to eat anymore), but Tiene was gonna try it out this week and she's gonna send us a movie with the result.
Prototype based on the movie we received from Tiene This prototype is also based on the movie of Brenda eating. With this prototype, we worked out another system, not just focused on the elbow. This prototype will test another way of thinking on the problem Brenda has, maybe we can use another movement of her body to let her accomplish the task of eating. > Small problem analyse:
The system is easy put around things, ther's a fixed loop and a musketon a semi-fixed musketon with the possibility to move. This way we can make the cord longer and shorter quickly without any extra tools, this is a handy feature when we will visit Brenda to test it.
> Video for what we expect to happen.The holder is fixid in length, when Brenda moves her upperbody het hand automaticly gets closer to her body.
> Test (18/03/'16)We couldn't test this prototype yet, because Brenda was getting really annoyed by the time we were gonna test it. But Tiene will try it this week and she will send us a movie with the result.> Test during vacation: (tested by collegue of Tiene, and she forgot to make a video)Expected positive:* easy fixture* good idea, fan of way of thinkingUnexpected positive:* Brenda was able to get her hand in itExpected negative:* Brenda was anoyed by the systemUnexpected negative: * It didn't gave enough support, it was to focused. She needs bigger support area
> Score: Brenda/ Tiene now gave us a score of 6/10 She really likes the idea that Brenda should only move forward and that the spoon will come directly to her mouth. She gave a score of 7 now, but we aren't sure if Brenda will react well to this prototype because it might be possible that she doesn't understand it. After the test she didn't gave a new score, but it's clear that Brenda makes it a No Go
Prototype based on the movie we received from Tiene
This prototype is also based on the movie. With this prototype, we worked out another system for supporting her elbow instead of using a pillow. She nees to put her arm in the white fabric (which will be closed with velcro), so that her elbow is always a few centimers above her table.
The problem with this prototype is that we are not sure we will be able to attach it to her table. Now we have provided some sort of clamp to attach it to her table (because we don't know the thickness of the table surface). But the problem is that underneath the surface, there could be some kind of material we couldn't take into account (if it doesn't work, we'll take some measurements of her table, to be able to change this prototype).
Test (18/03/'16)
Expected positive:
- It's the good height for her elbow.
Unexpected positive: / Expected negative: / Unexpected negative:
- Brenda was really annoyed with this prototype. Probably because she doens't understand what it is for. But she really didn't like it and she kept trying to push it away. Score: Brenda/ Tiene gave us a score of 3 or 4/10
Tiene really likes the idea of an element to keep her elbow in its place, but she doesn't think that Brenda will like it. Brenda didn't even want to try it, because it really annoyed her (she has a mental age of 2, so we couldn't explain it to her either).
Prototype based on the movie we received from Tiene
In the movie, you can see that Brenda has the problem that her elbow keeps falling off her pillow. As a result we designed a similar pillow (because Tiene said that she really likes the pillow they are using now, it really helps a bit), but with some sort of bandage to put her arm in, so she can't fall off of it anymore. The pillow also has some velcro on the bottom, allowing the pillow to stay in its place (if Tiene agrees that we put a little bit of velcro on Brenda's table too).
Test (18/03/'16)
Expected negative:
- We couldn't attacht the pillow on the table with the velcro (because we couldn't stick any velcro to the surface), so the pillow wouldn't stay on the place it should. We should think of another way of attaching the pillow to the table.
Expected positive:
- When we held the pillow in its place, her arm was always in the right position to eat. Tiene thinks we should work further on this this prototype instead of "Prototype 6", because Brenda reacted much better to this one. Probably because they already use some kind of pillow now, and she is used to this idea.
Unexpected positive:
- It was already the right height for her elbow, so we don't need to adapt the form of the pillow.
- Tiene really liked the idea of using velcro to put her elbow onto the pillow, because she drinks a lot between eating, and with the velcro they can easily untie her elbow allowing her to drink.
Unexpected negative:
- Tiene worries that the textile could hurt her, so she suggested using some more flexible textile
- Brenda got annoyed because we needed to hold the pillow to stay in it's place. We need a prototype we can attach to the table and her elbow really fast, because otherwise she gets really impatient.
Score: Brenda/ Tiene gave us a score of 7/10
She really likes the idea of working with the pillow, but we need a better method to attach it to the table. She's also worried that the textile we're using now (an old t-shirt, so not very flexible) would cut in her arm and that it would her (because she gives a lot of force onto this textile to scoop up her food), so she suggested that we could try using some flexible material.
Prototype based on "Prototype 1" and "Prototype 3"
This prototype is based on "Prototype 1" and "Prototype 3". It has a thick handle and it has a bend surface. Extra to this prototype are the four loops on the handle of the spoon. This is where Brenda should put her fingers in. This was an idea based on the movie we received from Tiene. In the movie, you can clearly see that brenda sometimes loses her grip on the spoon. These loops will prevent that she might lose the spoon due to a spastic movement.
Test (18/03/'16):
Expected positive:
- She didn't lose the spoon when she was using it.
Unexpected positive:
- Tiene said that it was a good idea to use multiple loops, because they already spoons there with one loop (for the whole hand), but the spoon twists too easily and the food falls off.
Expected negative:
- The loops were a little bit too small (it was difficult to put her fingers in it causing her to get impatient and irritated).
Unexpected negative:
- The surface of the spoon was too big for her mouth. It needs to be the same size of surface she has now, but it should be deeper (because now, she can't get a lot of food on her spoon).
- Brenda didn't seem to like the fact that she can't just grab the spoon and could eat. But we left the spoon (with a minor change) there so Tiene can test if it's because she really doesn't like the spoon, or because she already seemed a bit annoyed that day. Score: Tiene gave us a score of 5/10.
She really likes the idea, but she's not quite sure that Brenda will want to use it. We'll try making a different one (with textile now) to see if Brenda gets less irritated with that.
Some handles Tiene showed us that they already have in stock:
A flat handle is better than a round handle, because otherwise the spoon can twist in her hand.
They already tried a spoon with a loop, but she gets irritated by this feeling.
With this spoon, she learned how to eat.
We could consider some of these to work with too, but Tiene gave us some restrictions:
- the surface of the spoon needs to be coated (because otherwise the kinesist complains because she bites a lot on her spoon), but because of this coating, their spoons aren't deep enough anymore to scoop up some food. Would there be a possible solution to this?
- the size of the surface needs to be the same like it is now, cause otherwise it's not very easy for Brenda to put it into her mouth
This is the full video we received from Tiene. Some important information we could derive from the video:
1:26: She wants to hold the spoon, but her index finger stays always a bit straight.
1:32: When she puts the food in her mouth, she bends her head backwards. This complicates
eating.
2:18: Here you can see (if you look closely) that Brenda directs the spoon. Tiene is just holding
it for support, but it is Brenda who makes the decision what to eat.
2:26: When she doesn't want to eat anymore, she just releases the spoon. If Tiene wasn't there
to hold it, it would just fall into her food.
3:19: Here you can see very clearly that if she bends her head backwards, it complicates the
eating. She probably has in mind that it is easier that way to swallow, but she does it too
soon.
3:40: She bends her head again, which even causes the food to fall from the spoon.
4:29: She wants to eat with her hands instead of with the spoon, because it's probably a lot
easier.
6:31: The support of the pillow helps a lot with eating, but when her elbow moves too much, it
complicates her movements.
7:24: Tiene tries to make her right hand help with drinking, but Brenda doesn't like using that
hand.
Expected positive:
/
Unexpected positive:
- Brenda directs the spoon to tell Tiene which food she wants too eat
- The support of her pillow helps her with eating
Expected negative:
/
Unexpected negative:
- Her head bends backwards when she tries to eat (update: she will get a support for her head later this year)
- When she doesn't want to eat anymore, she just releases the spoon (= spoon gets dirty)
Friday 26 february, we visited Brenda for the first time. We had a small problem, because she didn't want to eat anything, but we could already observe some of her movements. For example, she only uses her left hand. She also knows what she wants to do (she doesn't want to eat, so she gives it to someone else), but the movements are very rigid.
Tiene promised us to make a video of Brenda eating ('cause we couldn't stay till lunch), so we we would have something more to work with.
Some extra informating around Brenda:
- She's 15 years old, but she has a mental age from approximately 2 years.
- She works best with her left hand. Her right hand is a bit more spastic.
- She can't speak and she doesn't understand a lot of what people are saying. She communicates with pictures or with pointing what she wants.
