RESUMEN
BACKGROUND: The current health care system is complex and inefficient. A simple and reliable health monitoring system that can help patients perform medical self-diagnosis is seldom readily available. Because the medical system is vast and complex, it has hampered or delayed patients in seeking medical advice or treatment in a timely manner, which may potentially affect the patient's chances of recovery, especially those with severe sicknesses such as cancer, and heart disease. OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this paper is to propose a methodology in designing a simple, low cost, Internet-based health-screening platform. METHODS: This health-screening platform will enable patients to perform medical self-diagnosis over the Internet. Historical data has shown the importance of early detection to ensure patients receive proper treatment and speedy recovery. RESULTS: The platform is designed with special emphasis on the user interface. Standard Web-based user-interface design is adopted so the user feels ease to operate in a familiar Web environment. In addition, graphics such as charts and graphs are used generously to help users visualize and understand the result of the diagnostic. The system is developed using hypertext preprocessor (PHP) programming language. One important feature of this system platform is that it is built to be a stand-alone platform, which tends to have better user privacy security. The prototype system platform was developed by the National Cheng Kung University Ergonomic and Design Laboratory. CONCLUSIONS: The completed prototype of this system platform was submitted to the Taiwan Medical Institute for evaluation. The evaluation of 120 participants showed that this platform system is a highly effective tool in health-screening applications, and has great potential for improving the medical care quality for the general public.
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OBJECTIVE: Few studies have analyzed the shapes of pillows. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between the pillow shape design and subjective comfort level for asymptomatic subjects. METHODS: Four basic pillow designs factors were selected on the basis of literature review and recombined into 8 configurations for testing the rank of degrees of comfort. The data were analyzed by the analytic hierarchy process method to determine the most comfortable pillow. RESULTS: Pillow number 4 was the most comfortable pillow in terms of head, neck, shoulder, height, and overall comfort. The design factors of pillow number 4 were using a combination of standard, cervical, and shoulder pillows. A prototype of this pillow was developed on the basis of the study results for designing future pillow shapes. CONCLUSIONS: This study investigated the comfort level of particular users and redesign features of a pillow. A deconstruction analysis would simplify the process of determining the most comfortable pillow design and aid designers in designing pillows for groups.
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BACKGROUND: The purpose of this study was to develop a diagnostic outcome instrument that has high reliability and low cost. The scale, called the Shoulder Fatigue Scale-30 Items (SFS-30) risk assessment, was used to determine the severity of patient neck and shoulder discomfort. METHODS: The quality function deployment (QFD) technique was used in designing and developing a simple medical diagnostic scale with high degree of accuracy. RESULTS: Research data can be used to divide the common causes of neck and shoulder discomfort into 6 core categories: occupation, cumulative, psychologic, diseases, diet, and sleep quality. The SFS-30 was validated by using a group of individuals who had been previously diagnosed with different levels of neck and shoulder symptoms. The SFS-30 assessment determined that 78.57% of the participants experienced a neck and shoulder discomfort level above the SFS-30 risk curve and required immediate medical attention. CONCLUSION: The QFD technique can improve the accuracy and reliability of an assessment outcome instrument. This is mainly because the QFD technique is effective in prioritizing and assigning weight to the items in the scale. This research successfully developed a reliable risk assessment scale to diagnose neck and shoulder symptoms using QFD technique. This scale was proven to have high accuracy and closely represents reality.