CloudCuddle Senior

Abstract

The primary purpose of this Integrated Product Design master thesis has two purposes. The first is to gain a deeper understanding of the needs of the elderly with dementia that causes undesired behaviour or Behavioral and Psychological Symptoms of Dementia, such as wandering during the night. The second purpose is to design CloudCuddle Senior: a lightweight and inflatable bed tent that keeps patients up to 120 kg in bed and creates a feeling of safety in various use cases such as home, caring home or the hospital. Data for this thesis were gathered by doing a literature study, making rapid prototypes and doing qualitative user tests. These methods generated knowledge for two sub-sections of the CloudCuddle Senior Design. The challenge of the Structural Design part was to come up with a bed tent concept that will be stiff enough to keep patients up to 120kg in bed while being lightweight to ensure mobility and consider nursing activities in and around the bed. The Experience Design of CloudCuddle Senior is about creating a safe and comfortable experience in bed that take the needs of people with dementia into account. The literature research results provide the support that patients with dementia need dynamic stimuli. However, research often focuses and compares mainly the type or the meaning of the stimuli such as Snoezelen, light therapy and music therapy while intensity through pace and amplitude often forgotten. More research into the intensity of therapeutic activities may conclude that designers of new interventions should focus on creating an intensity of dynamic stimuli that matches the patients need instead of focusing on the type of stimuli. A concept design is proposed based on the results of the Structural and Experience Design research. One of CloudCuddle’s bed tent’s significant characteristics is its inflatable structure. Although it was tried to design a more stiff design through solely inflatable elements, hard materials are required to meet the requirement of keeping 120kg patients in bed. The results on research from an Experience Design perspective implies that a bed tent that impairs vision on all sides except on one side offers a sense of safety while still being connected to the room in which the patients sleeps and a sense of control. The results of both the Structural and Experience Design research are combined in a final concept design for CloudCuddle Senior that should be prototyped and tested on strength and experience.