Research On The Design Of Adaptive Functional Clothing For The Elderly Based On Alzheimer's Disease

In the context of population aging,elderly diseases have become an important medical and social problem.With the growth of aging,China will become the "big country of aging population" with the largest number of elderly people in the world.As a vulnerable group in the society,especially the elderly with Alzheimer's disease,their actions are more inconvenient than the normal elderly,so they should be given special care.At present,there are a lot of medical researches on Alzheimer's disease,but there are few clothing specially developed for this kind of people to meet their physiological and psychological needs.In this project,for the elderly patients with Alzheimer's disease in the early and middle stages,taking women's autumn and winter style as an example,we designed and made functional clothing,and obtained the views and comments of users and their close related personnel on the functional clothing.The work of the project is carried out from the following three aspects:(1)Research and analysis of functional requirementsIn this study,observation,questionnaire survey and in-depth interviews were used to investigate the family members of patients with Alzheimer's disease and related medical staff.The results are summarized as follows:(1)In daily clothing,AD patients generally don't button or fasten the wrong button,can't distinguish the front and back of the clothes,can't pull the zipper,and move slowly;(2)Due to memory impairment and cognitive decline,patients may have biased cognition of their space and external objects,resulting in a higher probability of falling than the general elderly of the same age,and easy to lose;(3)The functional requirements of clothing: anti lost function > fall protection > health monitoring > warmth and fever > others.(4)The early and middle stage patients still have certain ability of life and action,while the severe patients completely rely on the care of their families and nursing staff.The functional clothes designed for AD patients should be designed according to the different stages of the disease.(2)Design and production of functional clothingAccording to the needs of patients in the early and middle stages,FEA model and Clothing Taskscape model are used to analyze,establish functional clothing design elements,and propose solutions for each element,and finally design and produce a coat and pants that integrate functionality,comfort and beauty.The function of the clothing is reflected in three aspects: easy to put on and off,fall protection and loss prevention.(3)Clothing efficacy evaluationIn the part of clothing evaluation,subjective evaluation method is adopted,including subjective wearing evaluation and questionnaire evaluation,to evaluate the convenience,comfort and functionality of wearing and taking off.Subjective wearing evaluation,by inviting people closely related to the patient to participate in the fitting,according to the evaluation form to fill in the feeling of wearing;Questionnaire evaluation,the production of functional clothing explanation video,using the form of questionnaire to visit AD patients,family members and relevant medical staff,to obtain their views and evaluation of the functional clothing,including clothing modeling,wearing and taking off convenience,fall protection function,anti lost function and the overall effect;According to the results of the questionnaire,the satisfaction of the interviewees to the functional clothing is high;According to their evaluation and suggestions,the functional clothing can be improved in the following aspects:(1)Choose waterproof and dirt resistant fabric;(2)Materials with better performance and lighter weight are preferred for fall protection;(3)Add head thermal design;(4)According to different seasons,occasions,etc.,develop different styles of functional clothing.