Improving the Quality of Life of Patients Living with Neurological Diseases Through Design Thinking

Intractable neurological diseases decrease the quality of life (QoL) of patients due to declines in their physical functioning. This chapter illustrates how design thinking was employed by design students to generate a significant number of creative ideas for improving patients’ QoL. The idea creation program was based on a design thinking model in collaboration with the Graduate School of Design at Kyushu University and Kyushu University Hospital in 2022. First, three patients explained their symptoms and difficulties in their daily lives to 15 graduate students and three hospital staff members. The participants interviewed the patients and noted their findings on sticky notes that were grouped according to the issues that decreased the patients’ QoL. Finally, the participants generated ideas for addressing these issues. After the program was completed, the authors coded all the outcomes. The participants created 97 creative solutions comprising a mixture of services and products. The ideas approached the issues in two ways: assisting patients’ independent actions in general, and making specific daily scenarios more convenient and pleasant. The codes were classified into four categories: body movement, daily activity, communication, and recreation. In addition to creating more resource-effective outcomes, harnessing creative, solution-oriented approaches in the early stages of product-service development can generate more holistic healthcare settings. While hospitals treat the disease itself, there is room for design-based interventions in services that consider and improve the daily lives of the people living with disease.