DESIGN NAME: Sound Cushion
PRIMARY FUNCTION: Playful Reminiscence
INSPIRATION: As part of a wider project exploring internet of things product design as means to add value for the elderly and people living with dementia, Sound Cushion was inspired by the following design challenge: How might meaningful communication be simulated between people living with dementia & loved ones, thereby providing increased quality of live and wellbeing for all? Please also see supporting documentation attached.
UNIQUE PROPERTIES / PROJECT DESCRIPTION: Listening to music or familiar sounds from the past, especially when certain songs and sounds bring back fond memories, is a pleasure many enjoy. Sound Cushion, as an internet of things product design, provides a multi sensory experience of touching and hearing. This is achieved through bespoke audio, selected from the user’s unique playlist of songs and sounds related to personal life history and experiences. A physical interaction approach is applied Sound Cushion's pull and play pull cord function. The huggable cushion design offers haptic interaction for increased comfort and reassurance while in use for people living with dementia.
OPERATION / FLOW / INTERACTION: Sound Cushion is designed to stimulate reminiscence for people living with early and mid-stage dementia. A pull and play pull cord is provided. Pulling the cord results in an audio file being played through a speaker embedded in the top of the Sound Cushion product housing. In collaboration with care providers and loved ones, users can decide, through a sister application, if sound files are sampled randomly from the users play list, in order or on repeat. The leather pull cord's time taken to return to its start position within the product housing, is dependent upon the length of the audio file selected. Full return thus signals the end of the current audio. Sound Cushion also offers a huggable cushion design. This is in response to research suggesting tactile and haptic interactions as offering comfort and support for people living with dementia. Sound Cushion's playful, rich interaction approach stimulates engagement with the product. Existing research demonstrates sound therapy as effective for people living with dementia. Sound Cushion takes this one step further to leverage sound as means to support reminiscence of past experiences from long term memories. This is achieved through offering music and audio related to the user's past life history. As empirical evidence indicates long term memory remains unaffected by dementia for longer, Sound Cushion responds to unique user challenges and opportunities. Please also see supporting documentation attached.
PROJECT DURATION AND LOCATION: Two Year project: 01.01.2018-31.12.2019. This work was supported by the Excellent Research Idea Discovery project research fund (1.190045.01) of UNIST (Ulsan National Institute of Science & Technology)
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PRODUCTION / REALIZATION TECHNOLOGY: Please see supporting documentation attached.
SPECIFICATIONS / TECHNICAL PROPERTIES: Please see documentation attached.
TAGS: IoT Product Design, Design for Dementia, Rich Product Interaction
RESEARCH ABSTRACT: Please see document attached.
CHALLENGE: How might we stimulate meaningful communication between people living with dementia and their loved ones, thereby providing increased quality of live and wellbeing for all? Please see document attached for more details.
ADDED DATE: 2020-01-29 04:26:32
TEAM MEMBERS (7) : James A. Self, Young-Woo Park, Dooyoung Jung, Chajoong Kim, Jisu Kim, Heimin Kang and Yong Jun Park
IMAGE CREDITS: James Self, 2019.
PATENTS/COPYRIGHTS: APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR PROVIDING CONTENTS. Application No: 10-2020-0011677. Technical Patent. Self, J., Park, Y., W., Jung, D., Y., Kim, C., J., Park, Y., J., Kim, J. & Kang, H., M. 2020. Korean Patent
Cushion Design. Application No: 30-2020-0004191. Design Right. Self, J., J., Park, Y., W., Jung, D., Y., Kim, C., J., Park, Y., J., Kim, J. & Kang, H., M. Applied: 2020. Korean Design Right.
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