Design e Alzheimer: desenvolvimento de produto para idosos

Abstract

Alzheimer disease can be considered as an underestimated disease due to its complexity and at the same time due to the lack of personal search concerning this disease. Generally a person seeks to understand the disease only when relatives with this dementia, complicating in the attitudes to be taken and mainly radically transforming the life of all, precisely because it is a degenerative disease that has no cure. The importance can be judged by the fact that the disease is classified as an old disease, that is, elderly. However, during the research it was well known that the D.A is a disease of greater evolution in the elderly, however there are young people who have the disease, how, many times it is mistaken for fatigue or stress. The project aims to know the difficulties involved in the lives of people with Alzheimer's disease, as well as their evolution and other limitations that accompany their symptoms and through the design propose solutions aimed at helping them and their caregivers. The applied methodology deals with qualitative and quantitative research, by means of bibliographic studies; personal and asylum interviews with caregivers, nurses, physiotherapists and family members; observations of existing limitations, behaviors and difficulties, as well as the clothing used. The research made it possible to understand the disease and, among all the difficulties, to define as a focus motor limitation, more specifically at the time of dressing and with that, it was possible to develop proposals aimed at the elderly through the Munari method and assistive design concepts. Proposals that arrived at solutions with the criteria of practicality and comfort as a focus.