Jimmy is a retired 75-year-old man who lives with his wife in their home. He has helped her about 10hrs/week for about 10 years. His wife has a neurodegenerative disease. She has weakness in the lower limbs and mood changes. She moves without technical help indoors and uses a simple cane outdoors. Jimmy is worried about the risk of her falling and says he is constantly monitoring her.
|Needs||Current Approaches||Alternate Suggestions
|What could be created?|
|1. Jimmy would like to make the stairs safer for his wife||His wife uses a simple cane on the stairs and Jimmy gives her verbal cues to keep her focused on the task.|
|2. Jimmy would like his wife’s movements indoors and outdoors to be safer.||His wife uses a straight cane and he accompanies her to provide surveillance. She always wears stable footwear.|
|3. Jimmy finds it difficult to slow down his pace and schedule to adapt to his wife’s abilities.|
|4. Jimmy would like to improve his communication with his wife because they both have hearing deficiencies.||
|5. Jimmy would like to have help coming up with healthy meal ideas to cook.|
|6. Jimmy is looking for bath entry alternatives when his wife has less mobility.||For now, his wife uses a grab bar on the wall and on the edge of the bath.
She had a bath board that they thought was too dangerous, so they stopped using it.
Jimmy thinks that his bath is too small to install a transfer bench.