The Brief
Genus Pharmaceuticals provide an apomorphine drug administration solution for patients suffering from Parkinson’s disease. The drug is administered through continuous infusion via a pump and syringe system. Genus asked us to develop a protective case for their existing system that would reduce pump returns due to accidental damage.
The Challenge
- Strategy – Firstly we met with the client to identify the current issues. We also spoke to patients and healthcare professionals regarding their feelings about the case and their needs.
- Robust – The existing cloth bags used to store the pump did not offer much in the way of protection and resulted in many damaged or broken pumps being returned. Consequently the new case had to ensure that the pump was protected if the case dropped or bumped
- Tamper proof – A common behaviour of patients with Parkinson’s disease is punding, a characteristic to obsessively assemble and disassemble items. So the challenge was to design a case that couldn’t be taken apart.
- Easy to use – As patients with Parkinson’s disease have limited dexterity and difficulty with their co-ordination we had to ensure that the case was easy for them to unfasten but would not fall open whilst being worn
- Aesthetic – The aim of the design was to protect the pump from both water ingress and impact
- Colour – Light blue is a colour typically used in the design of medical products but Genus wanted to move away from this
The Outcome
- Not only did we design a case to protect the pump, we also created a design that improved ease of use and appearance, reducing the inherent stigma associated with devices of this kind
- To help destigmatise the disease we used red and black for the product, making it look more like a glasses or mobile phone case
- Our solution to patients taking apart the case was a design that could be held together through a series of clips with no visible fixings
- Less pumps have been returned since patients have been using the APO-pod
