Tim Mepham – Caitlin’s Blog

My essential question for this post is “How does Huntington’s dieseas affect peoples arm, hand and wrist movement?”

“Brain Cell” by Shannon McMann is licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0

My question is useful to my group and I, in a way that can help us to come up with a solution for him to do art again.

A team of researchers found that mice with a form of juvenile Huntington’s disease had weakened skeletal muscles in later stages of the disease. The scientists found a cutback of a protein called CLC-1 that carries chloride ions into cells which causes harder movement in some limbs.

This is a quick video that explains what Huntington’s disease is.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUgZq9PkDp1xaEivtcfJPSg

I did a lot of searching for sites that had any information on how Huntington’s affects on the arms, hands and wrists. Only about 1/3 % of the websites had any facts about how it affects the arms. But from the websites that did have information, I came out with the answer to how it affects the arms, hands and wrists.

1.Some Critical Questions I Asked

How does Huntington’s kill brain cells?
How important are our arms in our daily lives?
Why does Huntington’s disease affect the muscle?
How does Huntington’s disease affect the different muscle groups?

2. What new tools did I use in this project?

I used creative commons for the first time in any of my projects. I also used a new strategy to find more websites that would be useful for me and my research. I would ask a question look through the websites it gave me, then I would take my question and change slightly so that I would get new websites to check and it would give me more perspectives.

3. How did I verify the cites and information I found

I choose my sites and facts based on the author, like if the author is a doctor or the company/whole website is medical based. I would also only use facts that I could find on two or more websites.

4.How did the process of completing this challenge go? What could you have done better?

I started off on a rough start, trying to make my essential question. But I finally created one that relates to my adaptive tech topic for Tim. When I was doing my reasearch I came across a websites that had the most random facts and I ignored it compleatly. But if I could have done something better I would have wanted to make my description more detailed and used more websites as references.

Sources

Tim Mepham

Catharine Paddock, Ph.D. “Huntington’s Disease Affects Muscle as Well as Brain.” Medical News Today, MediLexicon International, 30 Nov. 2016, https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/314443.php.

“Diverticular Disease and Diverticulitis: Causes, Symptoms and Treatment.” The Pharmaceutical Journal, 2019, doi:10.1211/pj.2019.20206352.

Careless, James. “Strong Arms Are Vital for Daily Tasks.” Www.canada.com

http://www.canada.com/health/Strong arms vital daily tasks/4339456/story.html.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUgZq9PkDp1xaEivtcfJPSg

We talked with Tim Mepham, and asked him a couple of questions about him and his struggles with Huntington’s disease. He was accompanied by Nicola who helped us to understand what Tim was telling us. They were at Nicola Lodge.

We asked Tim questions that ranged from What his interests are, to what he struggles with in his everyday life. I was really interested in learning about things that he used to do but can’t do now. He told us that he used to do art in his spare time, But can’t now because his fingers are stiff and his arms don’t draw as well as they used to.

In groups we came up with ideas for what we could do to help Tim out with his struggles. Nicola also gave us some idea starters for us to think about while we come up with different contraptions. I think that my group were thinking of making something to help him to do art again or something to help him to get off the couch. If we were to do something for him to art, we could get the art teachers to test it out and help us to design it so it will be useful.

We originally had an idea to make a spoon or fork holder to help him with eating but then he told us that he had no issues with eating. So we took that idea and adapted it to help him to do something that would benefit him.

We will have to make a design to be printed in the 3D printer to and get measurements for the art tools.

So far what we know we will need:

A 3D printer
Art tools (to measure)
A ruler or something to measure with

First thing that we will do is figure out what art tools we are going to make it for. Next we will measure them all out and design the holder to fit them. after that we will make hand grip a suitable size for Tim’s hand. then we will print it.

Solution Fluency Process

Define: We figured out what we wanted to help him out with, and what we could do to make it happen.

Discover: We researched some ideas that are close to what we are attempting to do.

Dream: We dreamed about different ways to make this possible.

Here Are Some Notes I Took During The Video Call

My thoughts on this post

I think that the quality of this post is pretty good and that I put effort into it. I think that I would try to make it easier to understand and less complex.

Spoon/Fork Holder Photo: https://www.makersmakingchange.com/project/fork-and-spoon-support/

Caitlin's Blog

My Riverside Rapid Digital Portfolio

Tag: Tim Mepham

Adaptive Tech Explore the Field