Unboxing the tools for physical rehabilitation: embracing the difference between the clinic and home

An ever-growing body of research concerns the design of tools for rehabilitation integrating digital technology in support of an increased rehabilitee/patient compliance with prescribed treatment (e.g. physical exercises) when at home. Further, recent work urge for a consideration of the difference between the clinic and home environments in the design of such tools. We present three design explorations helping us reflect, by example, on how to embrace this difference. We take an embodied interaction perspective when suggesting how our designs can take advantage of the home as a rich social and material setting in which the acts of self-monitoring, self-articulation, and social scaffolding are carried out. We thereby, in line with more recent work, challenge the hitherto dominant leitmotif of home as a mere extension of the clinic, and the notion that rehabilitation tools, prescriptions and routines can simply be boxed and shipped from clinic to home.