Life Buddy
Research has proven that a healthy lifestyle adopted earlier in life has a greater impact on chronic disease development, physical function, and quality of life. However, there is also proof that if a healthy lifestyle is embraced later in life, meaningful changes can occur in one’s health and quality of life. Two of the most influential modifiable factors to one’s health and quality of life are nutrition and exercise. Small improvements in a person’s diet and physical activity levels can lead to meaningful changes in a person’s overall health and quality of life. Though the benefits may not be as significant if you do not meet the recommended minimum amount of exercise of 150 min per week, doing some exercise is better than being completely sedentary.
Chronic illnesses have been shown to be the hardest to ensure an individual takes their medication on time. Due to our target population including users with chronic illness, it was important to us that we take the time to determine ways to improve adherence. The literature has given us reason to believe that our product should aid in medication adherence. By implementing a fuel reminder system for in the home use, allowing autonomy in setting medication time, and educating the user on their medication, we have taken strides towards the LifeBuddy we hope to improve an individual's adherence to their medication regimen. By using a developed and validated model, we chose to focus on two of the five main aspects to include in our application: Health Care and System Related Factors and Patient Related Factors.
We built LifeBuddy using a “design-thinking” approach which keeps the needs of the users at the front. Our solution comprises of the LifeBuddy mobile application and LifeBuddy Amazon Alexa Skill. The current version of our application has the following
features: 1) Pill-tracking and reminder, 2) Curated Recipes based on condition, 3) Exercise suggestion for older adults, and 4) Vitals Monitoring.
Life Buddy Screens
Persona
The Design Process
Am interactive prototype of LifeBuddy can be found here: LifeBuddy