Vigour: Smart textile services to support rehabilitation

Abstract

“Vigour” is a garment that shows the possibilities of smart textile services for geriatric rehabilitation exercises. It is the result of a collaborative design process between a design researcher, three therapists, an eldercare manager, a textile developer and an embedded systems designer. Vigour embodies the knowledge that was accumulated during the collaborative design process. We contribute to the theme of experimentation in design research by showing the value of experimentation in a participatory setting through the iterations leading to the final garment. Further, we will briefly describe three of the steps that lead to the final prototype.