The design of a product for patients with panic disorder to facilitate positive memory retrieval

The design of a product for patients with panic disorder to facilitate positive memory retrieval

Smits, L.

Visch, V.T. (mentor)
Melles, M. (mentor)

Industrial Design Engineering

Industrial Design

Master specialisation Medisign

2012-04-20

Competitive Memory Training (COMET) Many patients in mental healthcare suffer from low self- esteem. Low self-esteem can increase the severity of a mental disorder and can prevent the patient from recovery. To increase the patient’s self-esteem a therapy, called Competitive Memory Training (COMET), was developed. COMET is used as a therapy in PsyQ, a Dutch mental healthcare institute, for the treatment of anxiety disorders, depressions, personality disorders and eating disorders. COMET aims at increasing the patient’s self-esteem by restoring the balance between the retrieval of positive and negative autobiographical memories. People who suffer from low self-esteem often have a negative memory bias. For those people, negative memories are better accessible than positive memories. Training the patients to retrieve positive memories more easily helps them to increase their self-image. This increases the likelihood for recovery. Panic disorder The target group of this project was people who suffer from panic disorder. Panic disorder patients experience panic attacks, most of the times in crowded places like supermarkets and public transport. During a panic attack, that lasts for some minutes, the patient experiences an extreme fear for physical and mental injuries, for example fear of dying or ‘going mad’. After experiencing the first panic attack the patient develops a fear of getting another attack, which results in panic disorder. Panic disorder has a considerable influence on the daily life of patients. If patients no longer feel confident with leaving the house, social activities and going to work become hard to undertake or even impossible. The patients develop avoidance behavior for situations where it is hard to escape from, for example public transport or supermarkets. This limits them in daily activities and this may results in feelings of isolation. The potential origins of panic disorder are still discussed by the experts in the field of psychology. Potential causes relate to stress, genetics and early development. Because panic disorder patients often suffer from low self-esteem and because they are getting treated with COMET, they will benefit the most from a therapy-enhancing product that helps to increase their self-esteem. Obsessive-compulsive disorder Panic disorders have rather high comorbidity rates. People who suffer from panic disorder often suffer from another mental disorder as well, for example: obsessive- compulsive disorder or depression. Designing a portable product for panic disorder patients may create a risk for obsessive-compulsive behavior, because many patients search for a person or object to hold on to. For that reason this project focussed on a non-portable product that is used in the home environment. This decreases the likelihood the patient feels dependent on the product when leaving the house. Insomnia In addition to the panic attacks, many patients suffer from insomnia. Sleeping problems during the night may increase the severity of the disorder during the day. Because of the sleeping problems patients do not want to go to bed in the evening. This results in a reversed day and night rhythm. Designing a product for nighttime usage helps the patient to experience rest at night. Control theme The COMET therapy asks of patients to choose a ‘control theme’. This theme is a positive autobiographical memory. Categorizing the often chosen control themes makes clear that most of the patients choose a memory that has some relation with relaxation and nature. For this reason grass was chosen as a cue to facilitate the retrieval of positive memories. Research experiments Research experiments were conducted to study the influence of several sensory stimuli on the retrieval of positive memories. Twenty panic disorder patients participated in the experiments. They were asked to experience the olfactory, tactile or visual trigger of grass. Another group of participants was used as control group. The people in this group only received the word ‘grass’. The experiments show that grass stimulates the retrieval of positive memories. From all senses the influence of touch on the valence (value assessment) of the retrieved memory is the most positive. The tactile stimulus and the control group stimulated the vividness of the retrieved memory the most. The vividness of the memories retrieved by the olfactory stimulus was lower than expected. Concluding from all experiments grass is an appropriate cue for the retrieval of positive autobiographical memories and the tactile stimulus delivered the best results for the valence and vividness of the retrieved memory. Thus, the product design is based on the tactile experience of grass. Product design As a result of the research experiments the Rookie is designed. The Rookie is a piece of furniture for the bedroom covered with grass. When placing the Rookie next to the bed, the grass can be touched by the user when lying in bed. Panic disorder patients often have problems falling asleep or they wake up in the middle of the night with an increased bodily arousal. During those tough moments the Rookie serves as a support for panic disorder patients and helps them with the retrieval of positive memories. Hopefully this thesis inspires other designers to make further steps in improving the home environment of mental healthcare patients by designing therapy-enhancing products: in doing so, they can help decrease the patient’s recovery time.

Healthcare

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:c0e0a78b-aa6e-4729-a463-f63d1c06af0c

Campus only

Student theses

master thesis

(c) 2012 Smits, L.