Unpacking the Challenges and Future of Assistive Technology Adaptation by Occupational Therapists

Occupational therapists (OTs) suggest or prescribe assistive technologies (AT) for use by a particular patient. OTs often need to modify, refine, or repurpose existing, off-the-shelf ATs in order to better address the specific health-related conditions, needs, and abilities of their patients. These practices typically involve piecemeal modification of ATs and various improvisational methods that use found objects and everyday materials at hand. In this study, we investigated the current practices of AT adaptation by conducting semi-structured interviews with expert OTs (N=10), studying examples of AT adaptation made by OTs (N=17) as well as collected AT samples from secondary resources (N=80) to further analyze OTs’ improvisational processes. This research contributes to the HCI research community by (a) providing/extending comprehensive knowledge about the current challenges and processes of AT adaptation by OTs based on recurring themes and categories, and (b) proposing guidelines and recommendations for clinical computer-aided design (CAD) software tools that support OTs in AT adaptation.