Brief
Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary disease (COPD) affects around 3 million people in the UK including an estimated 2 million undiagnosed. COPD is a progressive degenerative disease where acute exacerbations often cause the condition to progress faster. This can lead to a poorer quality of life and reduced life expectancy. Home monitoring to predict and prevent the occurrence and severity of exacerbations is seen as a major goal in improving patients’ lives. The design challenge was to develop a mobile COPD management tool, combining the results of a daily breath-condensate based COPD exacerbation diagnostic device, with other relevant data.
User and Technical Requirements
Research was conducted and user needs assessed. As well as the breath condensate based alert tool, key contributing factors were explored including aspects such as environmental conditions, medication conformance and activity levels. This was combined with potential prevention methods to reduce or avoid COPD exacerbations including short term medication, exercise, therapeutic or clinical interventions and carer alerts.
Result
Maddison developed a simple to use, mobile phone user interface design as a daily management tool for COPD sufferers to help with the control of their condition. It includes daily reminders and an escalation system with recommendations if the risk of potential exacerbations are increased.
