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Step 1: Use Case

Last modified by Zenan Guan on 2023/03/13 10:31

Topic	Question	Answer
Stakeholders	What users/stakeholders are involved in your use case? Patient/person with dementia Hospital Staff At Home Care Fellow Travellers (other patients, family members or other people with personal experience of Dementia) Relatives & Friends Informal Caretakers Focus Groups Gerard de Boer, 65 year old male suffering from the early stages of Parkison's with memory loss. Before getting sick he worked at a local high school as a mathematics teacher and always insisted on being the mentor for the freshmen. When he turned fifty he decided to volunteer at the local animal shelter to feed, walk and take care of abandoned dogs. After being taken into a care home, he has picked up playing the guitar so that he can play some of the songs of his youth. Eustatius de Boar, 43 year old male and the son of Gerard. He works as a mechanic at a bike repair shop in Enschede and can often be found in the mosh pit at local punk or metal gigs. As a teenager, he was often made fun of for choosing to become a mechanic, despite being able to go to university. He visits his father every other week and wished he could come more often, but the care home is in Breda. Patricia de Uil, 37 year old female doctor who supervises the care home and is in charge of designing the recovery plans for all the patients. She has one adopted teenager and one child that is halfway through primary school. Whenever she can, she goes sailing with her family in the local lake where she owns a small sailship.
Stakeholders' goal	What do these people want to achieve? Gerard wants to manage his newfound difficulties with memory so that he can live a happy life despite the struggles that he has been facing. Although probably not possible due to his mood swings and memory problems, he would love to be able to still volunteer in some way for the animal shelter. Eustatius just wants his father to be happy and not have to be faced with the ways that he is no longer the person that he used to be. Every time that he goes to his father with his young daughter he is afraid that today is the day that he will forget about her. Patricia would love nothing more than that her patients to get to live out their last few years in dignity. She has long given up hope that anything lasting can ever be done to help them, but she has learned that in the struggle there, too, is something beautiful hidden within.
Values and motivation	Why do these people want to achieve this? All of these actors are mainly driven by their desire to give Gerard the best life that he can have despite his problems with memory. Although everyone would love to be able to permanently cure him, they all understand that this is not the reality that they have found themselves in. Our world can be cruel, uncaring and cold where, no matter the good you do, horrible things can happen at any moment. Learning to cope with the situation is therefore their foremost priority. They are driven by the motivation of giving Gerard the autonomy to live his own life and give some, temporary, security to Eustatius so that his dad will remember at least something about him.
Role, task and context	What is humans' role in the overall task performance or activities? (e.g., think about the responsibilities) A patient is responsible for feeding the robot with information that it should keep track of and remember. The doctor carries the responsibility of ensuring that this information is correct, accurate and kept up to date by occasionally checking what has been entered. Information about the patient's relatives is validated with the concerned person by the doctor and the caretakers. This is done to avoid negative feedback loops of incorrect data. In the overall task loop, the human supplies some information to the robot, which is required to remember and produce whenever required. The stored information is cross-validated by other stakeholders in the loop, to ensure its accuracy. What are the main tasks or activities of these people? Gerard main task is focusing on recovery for any physical illness and trying to make the best of his old age Eustatius role is to ensure that he is there for his father during the period of time that he has it difficult Patricia aims to reduce the mental load off Eustatius and do as much for Gerard as she can. Which context factors have a major effect on the performance or activities? The progression of the illness, especially with regard to the level and frequency of memory loss. If someone loses track of what happened, say 10 minutes ago, a system to remember information may not function well since they will have forgotten what they read. Another important factor is whether, and to what extent, a patient has accepted their memory and what their reaction is to being reminded they forgot something. Some patients may react very strongly or aggressively to such information. Finally, the interest, time and availability of caretakers is important to ensure that data is accurate and misinformation is not kept in the record for too long.