Airy Scoliosis Brace
Accessible Personalized Healthcare
The Mission
Design an off-the-shelf and adjustable scoliosis brace that the teenager could wear comfortably and confidently.
My Role
- Conduct qualitative research, concept validation, and usability tests.
- Ideate and develop the concept, CAD, and working prototype.
- Create renderings, animation, and packaging.
- Design the App and website UI and coding.
Thanks
My deepest gratitude goes to my mentors, Michael Laskowski, Claire McKone, and Dr. Craig Eberson, who assisted me with design direction and clarified my scoliosis understanding.
Scoliosis is a lateral curvature of the spine that occurs most often before puberty.
I found that the existing braces encounter many obstacles with the patient compliance, fabrication, and their disposals, all of which limit their adoption.
Manufacturing
It takes 4 weeks for a doctor to make it out of plaster mold, which is a critical time for patients with fast progressing curvature.
Privacy
When the patient is only wearing temporary clothing, it requires close contact with the patient’s body in the molding process.
Compliance
The low comfort and poor aesthetics make it very hard for patients to wear them for enough hours a day.
Recyclability
The synthetic glue, the foam, the screws…recycling the brace by the users themselves has never been easy to do.
I contacted 6 scoliosis patients online who had worn brace and now in 3 different but common stages of treatment. I distilled their complaints into 6 basic issues as shown below.
The interviewers’ headshots are AI-generated to protect their privacy.
Design an off-the-shelf and ergonomic brace that the teenager would wear for 18 hours a day on average.
Ideation
I believe that making an off-the-shelf brace that can be easily set up and adjusted to fit all target users can eliminate the long manufacturing period and unprotected privacy issue of brace making process. So I explored some concepts in this direction.
Final design
Accessible
Users can assemble the brace at home with assistance from their family OR visit a clinic for professional help.
Adjustable
Perforation on the brace allows for 4.2-inch length change & +20/-20 degree rotation placement.
Comfortable
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Air circulation
The foam padding is designed intentionally with a pattern to allow heat to escape.
Open space for breath
Airy, like the Light Cheneau brace, allows patients to move and correct their spine while breathing freely.
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Resilience
The elastic nylon cord is more resilient than velcro straps for patients to bend and rotate their torso.
Fashionable
I used translucent ABS for the brace so that the patient may change the color of the brace by changing the paddings to match their outfit. Alternatively, the patient can remove the padding to make the brace invisible.
To further explore the aesthetics, I used Grasshopper to create graceful and fabric-like patterns which wouldn't make the user embarrassed if her brace was exposed.
Sustainable
Unlike current braces that can only be dumped into landfill - when the patient outgrows the brace or has finished the therapy, she can:
Validation test - 1st round
The first validation test was held in the Orthopedics studio at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, where I invited 4 teenagers with scoliosis to try on and move around in the brace prototype.
Concept development - 1:1 prototype
In recent years, wearing a worn time monitor with scoliosis brace has been obligatory in scoliosis therapy to uncover and help improve the compliance issue. I prototyped the monitor with an Arduino UNO and wrote it in C++ for instructional purposes in the final show.
Manageable
The APP identifies and improves patient compliance issues, provides exercise to keep muscles engaged, and allows patients and doctors to communicate instantly on the treatment plans.
Web development
The website serves as a platform for introducing the product and provides each customer with an A.I.-generated installation guide.
