The paper describes a Human-Centred Design approach to developing customised
facemasks for the orthopaedic correction of Class III malocclusions in
children. The effectiveness of facemask therapy critically depends on patient’s
compliance with the recommended wear time, possibly ranging between 14-
24 hours a day, over a time span of at least 9 months. Commercial facemasks
are unaesthetic, uncomfortable and cause irritations due to the direct contact
of plastic on the skin (Stocker et al., 2016).
The research project SuperPowerMe develops a custom-made facemask
to make the impact of the therapeutic intervention more sustainable in a critical
stage of the physical and psychological child development.
Differently from commercial facemasks, SuperPowerMe is composed of
3D-printable biocompatible materials which make the device comfortable
and customisable. SuperPowerMe adopts a gamification approach (Birk et
al.,2016): a smartphone application provides games of increasing challenge
where a superhero avatar wearing a facemask akin to the one worn by the child
gains power fighting against monsters and other characters.
An ergonomic customised prototype facemask has been developed and
will be soon tested at the Careggi Hospital in Florence, Italy
