Patricia is a middle-aged woman who takes care of her father who has been through a stroke, heart attack and is suffering from Parkinson’s disease. Her father is receiving full-time formal care and she provides care on a part-time basis (20 hours/week).
Needs | Current Approaches used by Patricia | Alternate suggestions | What could be created? |
1. Patricia needs help making sure her father takes all of his pills during the day since he has a faulty memory. | She sets an alarm for him, but it is too high pitched and he cannot hear it. | ||
2. She wants to find a way to make it easier for her father to swallow food and take medication. | Parkinson’s spoon – helps maintain stability with tremors, but it is expensive and her father’s tremors are not that bad. | ||
3. She wants to find a way to make it easier for her father to get dressed. | Magnetized shirts which look professional and are easy to dress someone in. | ||
4. She worries about her father’s decision making/planning since it is sometimes a safety hazard e.g. taking off his pants before going to the washroom which he then trips over. | Verbal cuing to remind him to take his clothes off once he is in the washroom. | ||
5. She needs help with finding well-paved sidewalks. | |||
6. She needs help organizing her father’s appointments. | She bought a calendar to write down all his appointments, but he forgets to look at it. | ||
7. She needs to find better ways to learn about newer technologies and how to use them. | |||
8. She has trouble with speaking to her father on the phone, because of the volume of his voice as well as his forgetfulness/rambling. | She uses an app called ‘speak up Parkinson’s’ where the patient speaks into the app and it tells him/her whether they’re speaking at a good speaking volume or not. |