New Thinking: Design and health

How a new material helps stroke patients recover and how mapping where infections and contamination happen helps staff training.

New Generation Thinker Elsa Richardson hears from two leading designers whose new research ideas have transformed the lives of stroke survivors and the elderly. Laura Salisbury is founder of the Wearable MedTech Lab at the Royal College of Art and CEO of KnitRegen and Professor Alastair Macdonald is Senior Researcher in the School of Design at The Glasgow School of Art.

They discuss the importance of collaborative design and testing usability. Laura tells us about her PowerBead design – a garment embedded with beads that aid in the rehabilitation of stroke survivors. Alastair discusses his work with the ageing population and how an app to register not just food provided but what patients have eaten has helped improve malnutrition in hospitals. Dr Elsa Richardson is a Chancellor's Fellow at the University of Strathclyde in the Centre for the Social History of Health and Healthcare (CSHHH) and is a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker You can find out more about Laura’s work here https://www.rca.ac.uk/research-innovation/research-degrees/research-students/laura-salisbury/ And Alastair’s work here https://www.gsa.ac.uk/research/design-profiles/m/macdonald,-alastair/ The AHRC funds projects linking art and health https://www.ukri.org/councils/ahrc/

Producer: Belinda Naylor

This New Thinking conversation is part of a mini-series of Arts and Ideas podcasts made to mark the anniversary of the NHS 75 years ago. It was produced in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI. You can find out more more in a collection called New Research on Radio 3’s Free Thinking programme website or sign up for the Arts and Ideas podcast on BBC Sounds.