Hasta La Ideas

Dezeen and MINI Frontiers: wearable technology will revolutionise healthcare for doctors and patients alike, says the director of design studio Vitamins in our final movie from December’s Wearable Futures conference.

“In the future there’s no doubt that wearable technologies are going to be part of our everyday lives,” says Duncan Fitzsimons of Vitamins. Increased usage of personal health-monitoring devices will be one example of this, he says, making the “the doctor-patient relationship change [for the] better”.

Fitzsimons explains how the current constraints on an appointment between patient and doctor – lack of time and lack of information – can be mitigated by personal monitoring devices that collect patient data over a long period of time.

“When we are ill at the moment we only see the doctor for a very small amount of time. This is just a snapshot in the progress of your illness,” he says.

“If [a doctor] has access to a wider amount of data, they’ll be able to see how your illness has started, progressed and perhaps is tailing off,” he continues. “That will enable them to have a lot more information to diagnose you better and also enable you to have a more transparent window into your health so that you can understand it better as well.”

For these benefits to be realised, Fitzsimons says the technology to record this data needs to be attractive and easy to use, citing two examples of products by healthcare company Qardio: the QardioArm, which measures blood pressure and the QardioCore, a wearable ECG (electrocardiogram) monitoring device, commonly used to detect abnormal heart rhythms. Both are designed, says Fitzsimons, to look unlike medical devices and use a smartphone as the interface with the patient.

[The above paragraph was amended on 27 February 2014. Previously, it was stated that Vitamins would be launching the QardioArm and QardioCore products.]

Fitzsimons is the co-founder of Vitamins, the design studio which last year won the transport category at the Design Museum Designs of the Year 2013 awards for its Folding Wheel project.

This is the fifth and final movie from the two-day Wearable Futures conference that explored how smart materials and new technologies are helping to make wearable technology one of the most talked-about topics in the fields of design and technology.

In the first movie, designer of Dita von Teese’s 3D-printed gown Francis Bitonti explained how advances in design software mean “materials are becoming media”. In the second, Suzanne Lee explained how she makes clothes “grown using bacteria.” In the third, Shamees Aden explained how scientists are combining non-living chemicals to create materials with the properties of living organisms. In the fourth, Pauline van Dongen called for wearable technology to “transcend
 the world of gadgets”.

The music featured in the movie is a track by DJ Kimon. You can listen to his music on Dezeen Music Project.

Dezeen and MINI Frontiers is a year-long collaboration with MINI exploring how design and technology are coming together to shape the future.

The post Wearable technology will “transform
the doctor-patient relationship” appeared first on Dezeen.

The world’s first folding wheels can be collapsed to take up about half the space so they’re easier for wheelchair users to store and transport.

Initially designed for bicycles, the Morph folding wheel by Vitamins Design measures 60 centimetres across and has a volume of 22 litres. When folded down, the 3.4 kilogram wheel measures 80 centimetres by 32 centimetres and has a volume of only 12 litres.

“The glass-filled nylon material that the Morph Wheels are made from is a composite that allows them to be incredibly tough and strong, without becoming prohibitively heavy or expensive,” said designer Duncan Fitzsimons, who first started working on the concept while studying at the Royal College of Art in London.

“The material gives elements of the stiffness and strength that you would get from a composite such as carbon fibre, combined with the robustness and lower cost that you would get from a plastic part.”

The wheel was developed to fit with an industry standard quick-release wheel axle and also uses the same solid rubber tyres as most other wheelchairs. “This is great, because it means that if someone wants to change their tyres or replace them after the tread starts to wear, they can go to their local supplier to get it done,” he added.

The design has been licensed to Maddak, a company specialising in home healthcare, and is also available to buy from the Morph Wheels website.

The folding wheel was recently shortlisted as one of the Design Museum‘s Designs of the Year alongside a library in south London, a stool shaped by magnets and a new website for the UK government, among many others – see the full Designs of the Year 2013 shortlist.

The category winners and overall winner will be announced next month. All nominated entries will be on display at the museum until 7 July as part of the Designs of the Year exhibition, which includes one controversial nominee presenting 3D-printed copies of two of the other finalists’ work.

Above: three prototypes pictured next to the final design

We previously featured a bespoke racing wheelchair used by Paralympic athletes and a concept for an airline seat with a detachable wheelchair.

Photographs are by Colin Ross.

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by Vitamins Design appeared first on Dezeen.