What makes a rehabilitation routine difficult to continue?
Easwallow considers swallowing-training experiences for people with Parkinson’s disease. The portfolio brings together patient, caregiver and clinician perspectives: physical effort, anxiety around eating, repetitive exercises and difficulty communicating day-to-day changes.
The design focuses on the experience around training: how a wearable is positioned, how an action is explained, and how progress might be communicated between a patient and their care network.
The problem extends beyond the exercise itself.
The empathy mapping describes frustration with repetitive rehabilitation and concern about dependence on others. Caregivers need a clearer way to understand the routine, while clinicians need information that can support follow-up.
These perspectives informed a connected-care concept. They do not demonstrate that a new wearable can improve swallowing function.
Training can feel repetitive and difficult to interpret.
Propose guided, game-like feedback that makes the expected action visible.
A central support can obstruct the intended electrode area.
Explore bilateral chin supports and a rotational resistance arrangement.
Caregivers and clinicians need different views of the routine.
Separate patient guidance from caregiver and clinician information flows.
The form changed when the constraints became visible.
Early ideas exposed practical conflicts: a strap could be inconvenient, a central rod interfered with the proposed electrode placement, and a linear spring did not match the intended movement well.
The concept developed towards a rotational mechanism with bilateral chin support. This is a documented design response to form and arrangement constraints; the resistance mechanism would still require specialist assessment.
One routine, with different views for the people around it.
The proposed interface guides a patient through preparation, an exercise and feedback. Caregiver and clinician views extend the system beyond the wearable, supporting the idea of remote review.
The technical concept includes pressure sensing, sEMG and NMES. The supplied work illustrates how these might fit together; it does not document a functioning or clinically assessed combination.
Use a physical model to ask a better form question.
The clay-model sequence explores the relationship between the chin, neck and surrounding structure. The work records shaping, refinement and wearing checks from different views.
This gives evidence of physical form exploration. It does not establish comfort over long sessions, force suitability, treatment safety or clinical effectiveness.
Separate a clearer experience from a validated intervention.
The strength of this project is the connection between wearable form and the wider care experience. The largest unresolved questions concern safe physical interaction and the feasibility of the proposed sensing and stimulation architecture.
Further work would begin with specialist review, fit and usability evaluation, and an appropriate supervised validation plan before making any treatment claim.
