Mark is 80 years old and is taking care of his wife who has been battling cancer for the past 20 years. Mark and his wife are exploring options in terms of palliative care. He supports his wife with most of her activities of everyday living. She has difficulty walking without assistance or for longer distances. She relies on a walker to move around inside their home.
| Needs | Current Approaches | Alternate suggestions | What could be created? |
| 1. He wants a website where he can find all the information he needs on diseases, treatments, and services on a provincial level. | He currently subscribes to newsletters from the Mayo clinic and frequently visits sites like the National Institute of Health and a variety of Canadian Health websites.
He also visits a site specific to medication usage, where he can look up info and contraindications on a variety of medications. |
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| 2. He needs help coming up with different recipes that are quick and easy to make, nutritious and that accommodate his wife’s restrictions. | |||
| 3. He wants to know all the services that are available to him and his wife, especially with regards to taxes and reimbursement. | |||
| 4. He needs help with stair glide since he always has to adjust the seat so that his wife does not fall off. | |||
| 5. He wants a caregiver organization, specific to each province, that gather annually and through this group can lobby for rights and services. | |||
| 6. One of his biggest concerns is leaving his wife home alone when he has to run errands – she doesn’t know how to use the phone very well so he worries about her communicating to him when he’s gone. She is reluctant to use a cell phone. | When they are both at home they use two-way walkie-talkies and his wife just pushes the call signal button when she needs him, but these only have a ¼ mile radius. |