Feelings, Interests and Routines these are a few of our favorite things...

"When I wake up, if I am in a bad mood from too little or too much sleep I get out of my routine, " share Mr. Chaos also known as Mr. Don Carter.

This week it was all about routine.  We started by looking at our own daily routines and we noticed a few unique things that may help us as our design fits into and enhances a person's life, gives them control and a sense of freedom.

The patterns that we identified were: 

• Attitude- Attitude can affect routine (too much or too little sleep, natural rhymes, bad dreams all can affect attitudes in the morning).  "Pills can add to the drag of the day and become the benchmark"
• Feelings- Understanding how a person feels about taking their medication and their health is important
• Interests/Motivations - Understanding a persons interests or motivation is key arrive at a shared understanding why a medication is important to allow them to be able to participate in their interests (time with family or grand kids, golfing, gardening, etc.)
• Common Cultural Anchors - There might be a similar cultural anchor (i.e. watching Jeopardy) that can be a shared point in routine that can create strong association to taking medication.

Routines are unique and personalized.  How could our design allow each person to review and identify their own routine and how and why medications fit into their daily routine.  "Pills don't push you around you should be the pill pusher," from Christine Gloss.  A funny way of saying that the day shouldn't revolve around medication but the medication should be fit into the existing daily routine.  

Also Ed Marsh quickly put on his actor hat and played a doctor/patient conversation.  "Mr. Smith, how are you feeling about your condition and taking this medication.  Oh, you are not sure you want to take your medication?  You are a golfer right Mr. Smith.  You know taking this medication will help you more quickly get back on that golf course."  Like a professional motivational interviewing coach, Ed quickly and precisely acted out a vignette of the feeling and interests part of our discussion.  Understanding a persons feelings and their motivations are the foundations of allowing the change to fit into their existing routine and make it a sustainable change. 

The outcome of our session was that have a set of questions or principles that allows each person or their those involved in their care to recognize their routine, identify how and where medication fits into their routine, understand there feelings about the medication and understand why taking medication is an important step to continue to enjoy their interests.

These are the questions and principles we identified:

• How are you feeling about medication?  
• What things to you want to be able to do? 
• Be aware of the role of mood and identify mood changing activities or behaviors
• What is my daily routine? (What time do I wake up? when do I eat? what is the first thing I do in the more? is there anything I do every evening and where does that happen?)
• Slow and Small - Only make one change at a time and once that change has become routine work towards the next.  

It is about living an individual and personal interest centered life not medication centered life.