Gaining resolution when creating imagery of aging

In seeking to support healthy aging, designers have struggled to reduce their assumptions and biases toward older adults, been seen to interpret the worlds of later life through unfiltered imagery, as well as engage with stigmas, ultimately diminishing the technologies they construct. This article seeks to critically analyse this state-of-the-art from a design research perspective while engaging with the growing interdisciplinary study of aging and technologies. Toward this, we proposition “resolution” as a concept indicative of the level of detail that seeks to characterize the fidelity that representations of later life have. This concept is explored through a cultural probe study that investigated the sentiments of several older Australians regarding the inequities and social isolation brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. Providing a diary alongside photovoice and mapping tasks, the study captured perceptions of social technology, practices, networks, and wellbeing, offering a diverse and complex picture of aging and technology. Through reflexive thematic analyses of some of these materials, this case study offers designers pathways to understanding and including older adults in their work. In determining the resolution of these images of aging, we discuss how transparency about the limitations and qualities of such participatory methods through incorporating reflexivity can influence the degree of detail such imagery gains. Ultimately this concept builds on the notion of participation configuration, supporting designers to realize better images of aging and representations of later life

The art of tacit learning in serious location-based games

Over the past two decades, location-based games have moved from media art fringes to the mass cultural mainstream. Through their locative affordances, these game types enable practices of wayfaring and placemaking, with the capacity to deliver powerful tacit knowledge. These affordances suggest the potential for the development of location-based games in educational contexts. This paper presents three cases studies—TIMeR and Wayfinder Live and Pet Playing four Placemaking—to illustrate how each uses elements of wayfaring and placemaking to bring new opportunities for education through a tacit knowledge approach

Enabling an ageing workforce: Using design to innovate the workplace and empower older workers

Australia’s population is ageing, but with enhanced health prospects and insufficient retirement funds, and industries impacted by a dwindling itinerate manual labour supply, workers will want, and may need, to remain in the workforce for longer. However, as people age, they lose muscular strength, experience a decline in physical and cognitive performance, and are more vulnerable to muscular-skeletal issues caused by repetitive or awkward movement patterns. Consequently, ageing workers in occupations that require sustained physical activities are at increased risk of injury and exacerbated physical decline and may experience ageist discrimination in the workplace that impacts their psychological wellbeing. This research, Enabling an Ageing Workforce, recognises the issues facing the older worker across a range of different workplace contexts and asks the question: How can design and new technologies address the compounding factors of an ageing (working) population and enable older workers to continue to be productive and effective whilst ensuring their personal wellbeing? Enabling an Ageing Workforce’ is a collaborative research and design project between RMIT University’s ‘Safeness by Design’ initiative and the Innovation Centre of WorkSafe Victoria. This project investigates ageing, wellbeing, and workplace safeness within specific industries to identify areas of concern, opportunities for design intervention, and the proposal of future-focused design solutions. The researchers conduct a substantial scope of enquiry, while concurrently undertaking a partnered design studio with Industrial Design students, to develop and respond with appropriate design solutions. The research identifies that safeness issues exist across specific industry contexts because of workplace culture, practices and predominant behaviours, specific work actions and activities, workplace design, economic and time pressures, and poor risk literacy, training and awareness. The design studio component sees students addressing research-identified issues across many industry sectors and workplace contexts to: • prevent musculoskeletal issues in healthcare workers in the homecare environment, • correct harmful movement behaviours in manufacturing environments, • support older workers in manual tasks, through assistive technologies, • address mental health in the construction industry, • reduce ladder injuries in the residential construction industry, • reduce vibration related injuries in the agricultural sector. This research reveals insights into how a ‘safeness by design’ lens can enable an ageing Australian workforce. Such an approach needs to balance pre-emptive and reactive safety measures, focusing on creating a safe and supportive working environment for all workers. Whilst it is important to support older workers to reduce risk or injury and to promote their capability and performance, enabling longevity, it is also critical to implement measures that protect younger workers from unsafe workplace behaviours, processes and expectations that can lead to longer-term impairment, and may result in them leaving that industry prematurely

Towards Re-Imagining Industrial Design Education for the Contemporary Period,

It is proposed that a progressive Industrial Design education should focus on supporting students in learning to self-manage ambiguity and bolster their agile independence throughout the tentative undergraduate years of growth [1]. As the field of Industrial Design moves beyond its industrial manufacturing roots, exploration of curricula that anticipates contemporary issues such as decolonisation, diverse participation and complexity in creative innovation is still not prevalent in this contemporary period [2]. Such a context necessitates an accelerated disruption to traditional design pedagogical practices [3], as seen in the RMIT University Industrial Design programme My First Six Months (MF6M) - a first-year learner-centred initiative situated around capacity development, student agency, self-efficacy, and disruption of expectations about the power dynamics in learning and teaching. This paper outlines the adoption of the RMIT University, My First 6 Months (MF6M) first-year learner-centred pedagogical alignment into the 2nd and 3rd year vertically integrated studio environment, through the case study ‘Safeness by Design (SbD)– Enabling an Ageing Workforce’ – a collaborative partnership with the Innovation Centre of WorkSafe Victoria, a state government safety regulatory body. In curating the studio’s outcomes, it became evident that the embedded predispositions developed throughout their MF6M experience, activated the diversity of students’ thinking and acting in situations resembling real-world design practice, which achieved our SbD studio’s pedagogical ambitions. We found this model to be highly transferable, requiring less teaching staff intervention and giving more flexibility to students, by reinforcing notions of independence, trust and self-efficacy in learning. Students are scaffolded as they dynamically explore and frame their own inquiry questions and continue developing their professional identity throughout their studies. In doing so, the classroom is firmly situated as a safe and democratic creative space, whereby teaching staff adopt a coaching role to establish a collaborative partnership, to further support student capacity and confidence

Journey mapping long COVID: agency and social support for long-hauling

Long COVID, also known as Post COVID-19 condition, is defined by the WHO as the continuation or development of new symptoms three months after the initial SARS-CoV-2 infection, with these symptoms lasting for at least two months with no other explanation. Despite many studies examining the causes and mechanisms of this disease, fewer studies have sought to understand the experience of those suffering from long COVID, or “long-haulers,” This study contributes to the understanding of long-haulers (N = 14) by examining the role of agency and social support in shaping their journeys with long COVID. Drawing on a combination of interviews, questionnaires, and video diaries over a three-month period, journey mapping was used to document the participants’experiences, including symptoms, coping strategies, and lifestyle changes. Analysis of these journey maps resulted in a framework with four clusters demonstrating the importance of social support and patient agency shaping participants’ Long COVID trajectory; the study contributes valuable insights into the daily lives and challenges individuals face with long COVID, informing the development of targeted support programs

First experience in human beings with a permanently implantable intrasac pressure transducer for monitoring endovascular repair of abdominal aortic aneurysms

ObjectivesEndovascular stent graft repair of abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAAs) prevents rupture by excluding the aneurysm sac from systemic arterial pressure. Current surveillance protocols after endovascular aneurysm repair (EVAR) follow secondary markers of sac pressurization, namely, endoleak and sac enlargement. We report the first clinical experience with the use of a permanently implantable, ultrasound-activated remote pressure transducer to measure intrasac pressure after EVAR.MethodsOver 7 months, 14 patients underwent EVAR of an infrarenal abdominal aortic aneurysm with implantation of an ultrasound-activated remote pressure transducer fixed to the outside of the stent graft and exposed to the excluded aortic sac. Twelve patients received modular bifurcated stent grafts, and 2 patients received aortouniiliac devices. Intrasac pressures were measured directly with an intravascular catheter and by the remote sensor at stent-graft deployment. Follow-up sac pressures were measured with a remote sensor and correlated with systemic arterial pressure at every follow-up visit. Mean follow-up was 2.6 ±1.9 months.ResultsExcellent concordance was found between catheter-derived and transducer-derived intrasac pressssure intraoperatively. Pulsatile waveforms were seen in all functioning transducers at each evaluation interval. One implant ceased to function at 2 months of follow-up. In 1 patient a type I endoleak was diagnosed on 1-month computed tomography (CT) scans; 3 type II endoleaks were observed. Those patients with complete exclusion of the aneurysm on CT scans had a significant difference in systemic and sac systolic pressures initially (P < .001) and at 1 month (P < .001). Initial sac diastolic pressures were higher than systemic diastolic pressures (P < .001). The ratio of systemic to sac systolic pressure increased over time in those patients with complete aneurysm exclusion (P < .001). Four of 6 patients with no endoleak and greater than 1-month follow-up had diminution of sac systolic pressure to 40 mm Hg or less by 3 months.ConclusionThis is the first report of a totally implantable chronic pressure transducer to monitor the results of EVAR in human beings. Aneurysm exclusion leads to gradual diminution of sac pressure over several months. Additional clinical follow-up will be necessary to determine whether aneurysm sac pressure monitoring can replace CT in the long-term surveillance of patients after EVAR