Process

For generating the design agenda, adopting a mixed design process consisting of both the main design process treating the overall process and the sub design process treating the phase process. Activities were conducted to define the design requirements while carrying out the design process. These activities included interviews with rehabilitation medical specialists at Kyungpook National University Hospital and Ulsan National University Hospital, visits to the occupational rehabilitation therapy room, and reviewing prior research surveys.

Outcome

The final result is divided into the interview result, the service system’s design and the device’s design within the service system. Several reasons were identified from interview results as to why a rehabilitation robot is not easily introduced and used in the Korean rehabilitation hospital based on four categories: medical environment, existing products, exercise, and hospital systems. The service system completed the concept design level. The device design was completed at the system-level design and partially the detail design. The device design’s specific results include establishing the type of product, drawings, IF design contest entries, and patent applications.

The expected effectiveness of the design agenda in this research is the introduction of Smart rehabilitation methods, improvement of medical welfare, reduction of work burden, quantification of diagnosis and prescription, and provision of customized training for patients. Rehabilitation medical professionals and precision control service providing companies showed the willingness to study further and commercialize the device design outcome. Through this study, one example is presented to designers in the Korean upper-limb rehabilitation device design field to employ design leadership to attract engineers or other groups of experts so that post-product concept design may be further studied.