Capturing patients’ daily life experiences after Total Hip Replacement

Context-aware technology in the home environment can provide an effective solution for supporting wellbeing and autonomy for the elderly in chronic diseases and physical impairments, such as osteoarthritis. Total Hip Replacement (THR) is the most common procedure to relieve both pain and functional disability experienced by elderly patients suffering from end-stage osteoarthritis, thereby improving their quality of life. The paradigm shift in healthcare on shortening in-patient care has shaped an atmosphere of misinformation for both the patient and the medical staff about individual patterns of recovery, creating uncertainty about patients’ recovery outcomes. This paper presents the experiences of applying qualitative methods to fulfil this lack of information around the patient, and thus use this information to define a context-aware system that will support the recovery. The application of User Centred Design methods (UCD) are described as means for elicitation of functional system requirements, and how the design of an Experience Sampling Method tool (ESM) is being applied to improve and expand the understanding of elderly patient’s living experiences after discharge. The key findings resulting from these approaches aim to contribute to the design of a suitable supportive technology and messaging-communication tools for the needs of THR elderly patients.