Joint Venture: Designing a Digital Solution for Monitoring Arthroplasty Patients’ Movement Patterns

Abstract

This Master’s thesis explores the design of a mobile application for enhancing postarthroplasty care through self-tracking. The primary goal is to provide a userfriendly interface for caregivers to monitor and support patient rehabilitation after arthroplasty. Current rehabilitation practices within arthroplasty often lack digital solutions that can monitor and encourage patient mobility and compliance. To fill this gap, the proposed application uses self-tracking data from the patient’s iPhone to visualise and analyse movement data, offering caregivers real-time insights into patients’ progress. This approach aims to improve surgical outcomes and enhance communication between caregivers and patients by providing a platform for continuous feedback. Through user studies, the needs of caregivers working in relation to arthroplasty have been explored, identifying a desire to incorporate objective evaluation measures to improve current practices. Beyond user studies, the research also reviews related literature on the impact of digital solutions within healthcare, particularly the utility of mobile health applications in promoting physical activity. The application’s design process, grounded in the Design Thinking framework, emphasises usability and empathy towards the target group to ensure the application is practical for caregivers. Key findings from user testing suggest that the application can contribute to a more personalised and responsive care process. Through iterative design and testing, the application has been refined to meet the specific needs of its users, with particular attention to intuitive design and ease of use. In conclusion, this thesis presents a step towards integrating digital health solutions in post-arthroplasty care, potentially leading to better patient engagement and improved health outcomes. It calls for further research into the long-term impacts of such applications and their integration into standard care practices, suggesting a paradigm shift towards more technologically integrated healthcare solutions for ageing populations.