Personal Project
PAINMAP is a project which explores the correlation between pain and mental visualization.
My role
Researcher, UX/UI Designer, Developer
Mission statement
The theory is: as pain is experienced in the 3D space of the body: it should be possible to visualize and create a platform that allows patients to recognize their pain situation visually
This would aid patient-doctor communication, as it alleviates the patient's responsibility to correctly describe their pain.
Two people reading the same book will have different interpretations of the visual descriptions
Two people watching the same movie will have the same understanding as the visual representations are created for them
Research
Background research
The Kiki / Bouba theory ( Köhler, 1920) proposes that human beings inherently have a correlation between audio-visual properties. The theory of ideasthesia further proposes a correlation between names and physical characteristics. (Iborra, et al., 2013) This means; we use the descriptive words that will best describe the shape or path of the pain we experience.
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The cross-perceptive theory proposes that we experience concepts across senses. ”Bouba” can be drawn as a blob, but can also be the taste of milk chocolate or Lancaster cheese. (shukla, et al, 2016)
The use of hand gestures to explain abstract concepts
Hand gestures aid speech production (Haydar & Butterworth). We use our hands when we speak as a means of introducing symbolic and imagistic content. By pointing to a specific body part or emphasising the general area of pain while explaining, the practitioner gains a more complete image of the pain situation. For example, when pointing with our fingers, the doctor knows it’s likely a sharp or stabbing pain, when emphasising the general area with the palms it will likely be an ache or dull pain.
We subconsciously use our hands to further explain points that are abstract, to someone else. In the doctor's office, one can often be found creating shapes, tracing paths and movement with hands to further explain what one is feeling.
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Current painmapping
There are several aspects of pain that this format completely disregards.
Pain is experienced in a 3D space. A 2D drawing provides little to no differentiation between the layers of the body. Pain can be felt in the bone, the muscles or the skin, often creating a shape that travels through these. Once patients are asked to colour in a general area, it provides no useful data on where the pain is actually felt.
Another aspect is the way pain changes and is experienced over time. This means, a shape drawn on the 2D map, shows no data on how the pain behaves. If it is a throbbing toothache, it will pulsate through the jaw in intervals. If it is shooting pain down the hamstring, it will move along a path with a beginning and an end. By animating these descriptors, a better picture of the behaviour of the pain can be created for the patient.
Pain Descriptiors
Pain descriptors
When interviewing physiotherapists Jordan Richard Smitham and Benjamin William Bowling, they suggested beginning by looking at neuropathic pain. This is because neuropathic pains have no triggers and the doctor is purely reliant on the patients description to understand what they are experiencing. Neuropathic pain descriptors are also relatively straightforward and a good place to start exploring what pain looks like.
Information architecture
Final Design
High Fidelity wireframes
Pain visualizations
Pins & Needles, Tingling sensation
Pins and needles can be customized as either small, white noise-like dots that move sporadically, or they can be increased to larger circles and a more tingling-like sensation. Much like shooting pain, the general area of this is identified by drawing on the area of the body, and subsequently, this is shown with the appropriate animation.
Shooting Pain
Using the slider to find the correct layer and placement of the pain is a universal functionality that works for all pain descriptors. The customization of shooting pain allows the user to use the slider to decide the soreness level, meaning the width of the red affected area. For placement, a line is drawn by the patient, which is then animated as a moving, shooting white arrow down the drawn path.
Stabbing pain
Less frequent stabs of pain are categorized as sharp pain whilst multiple ones are called stabbing pain. This is an important differentiation and using the slider the patient can customize the animation to show multiple white lines hit the body. Once placed, the impact area in red can be moulded accordingly.
Pulsing/throbbing pain
Pulsing pain is depicted as circles that pulse outwards in a growing and disappearing motion. The changeable parameter is that the patient can use the slider to increase the frequency of the throbbing pain.
Burning sensation
A burning sensation is a much more area-focused type of pain and can be drawn on the body much like one would use generalizing hand movements to show the affected area. Once this placement is drawn by the patient, Painmap renders the animation as a slightly radiating glow on the place where the patient has placed it.
