This project focuses on the often-overlooked role and requirements of family members who care for patients with cardiovascular diseases (CVD), particularly those recovering from myocardial infarction (MI) or having open-heart surgery (OHS). While cardiac rehabilitation (CR) programs are beneficial in improving patient outcomes and lowering risk factors, they are often centered around patients. However, family members play an important role in maintaining lifestyle changes and supporting rehabilitation at home, despite receiving minimal to no support.

The project proposes the Family Box, a personalized, digitally enabled support system based on the Leids Universitair Medisch Centrum's (LUMC) modular "Box," as a solution to this issue. The Family Box provides personalized support relevant to a wide range of family members. The research uses literature reviews, focus group data, qualitative interviews, and surveys, all of which are based on the human-centered design methodology ("Hear, Create, Deliver"). In addition to recognizing possibilities to empower family members through personalized support, this approach highlights important problems, including managing caregiver burden, understanding medical information, balancing household tasks, and addressing emotional needs.

The project states that personalization is important because a one-to-all solution can not meet every family member’s diverse needs and preferences. Through the development of a framework for personalization, a personalization strategy is designed for the Family Box. By considering a set of four personas (Protector, Adaptor, Talker, & Observer) based on dimensions like involvement, care approach, and emotional coping strategies, the system can personalize educational modules, goal-setting tools, and progress-tracking features. Using data from wearable devices and other health measurements, family members can receive meaningful updates, reassurance about the patient’s condition, and relevant lifestyle advice without becoming overwhelmed.

Early findings suggest that a Family Box can improve family member well-being, foster better collaboration between family and patient, and ultimately improve adherence to rehabilitation guidelines. Furthermore, by creating a scalable, modular system, the design can scale beyond MI and OHS to other care paths and eventually to preventive applications. However, ethical risks, such as protecting user privacy and preventing over-reliance on constant monitoring, must be carefully managed.

In conclusion, this project shows how personalized support can improve the involvement of family members in CR, leading to the improved well-being of both family members and patients. For further development, the project provides a roadmap for developing such a platform and highlights areas for further research, including the refining of data-driven personalization and larger-scale implementation studies. Additionally, the framework for personalization is discussed for application in other projects, using this project as a case study.