Research Projects
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Developing Co-Design Kits for Family Caregivers in an Inpatient Setting
Spring 2022
This was a group research project centered around family caregivers of bone marrow transplant patients, who face a unique set of challenging circumstances.
Bone marrow transplants are often administered after particularly aggressive cancer treatment plans. After a bone marrow transplant, patients need 24/7 care for nearly the first 100 days as they are particularly fragile during their initial recovery. This can take a heavy emotional toll on their caregivers.
Our team hoped to investigate ways to mitigate these personal mental challenges for family caregivers in an inpatient setting. We chose the co-design approach, a participatory design strategy that allows family caregivers to contribute directly to the design process. Our objective was to facilitate this through a co-design kit, which we developed over the course of this project.
This Project was presented at the University of Minnesota's spring research symposium
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Developing Custom Non-Invasive Ventilation Masks for Pediatric Patients
Summer 2024
For this project, I had the opportunity to work with the Human Dimensioning Lab on an ongoing medical device development project.
The research centered around non-invasive ventilation devices (NIVs), which support patients with chronic respiratory issues in both inpatient and outpatient settings. Within inpatient healthcare systems, NIVs can often be critical for progressing patients through to the completion of their treatment. Despite the crucial support that effective NIV devices provide, pediatric designs notably lag behind their adult counterparts in comfort, efficacy, and accessibility.
In this project, whether or not a customizable approach may bring advantages, bridging the gaps that traditional, pre-sized mask design leaves behind.
In preparation for this project, 3D scans were taken of the heads of a group of pediatric participants. This anthropometric data was then utilized to develop an efficient process for the production of a custom mask interface and the development of an accompanying adaptable harness. The mask interface was prototyped in Rhinoceros 3D modeling software, while the harness was developed through physical sketching and prototyping methods.