As Hong Kong's population ages, an increasing number of adults are at risk of or suffering from swallowing difficulties and require healthcare support. As this issue threatens to overwhelm healthcare professionals, and with the drastic change brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic in how clinical sessions are conducted, people are now seeking an effective way to deliver treatment, specifically speech therapy, to patients.
With this goal in mind, MotOral, a team of like-minded students, developed the idea to create a cross-platform mobile application to help patients cope better with their disorders. The app provides exercises, health-related information, and a new way for patients to communicate with speech therapists.
The aging population and elderly swallowing difficulties have been an increasing concern among the professionals working in the healthcare sector for the elderly (Wirth et al., 2016). It is estimated that 20-40% of adults aged 50 to 60 suffer from these difficulties (Shune et al., 2016), and their associated diseases, such as stroke and dementia, may lower people’s quality of life and be fatal (Sutton, 2013; Baijens et al., 2016). Fortunately, with sufficient support in preventing swallowing disorders, the elderly’s quality of life and survival can be ensured, and medical expenses can be reduced (Matsushima et al., 2016). In a pilot impact project launched by HKU Swallowing Research Laboratory, at-risk older adults are provided with swallowing exercises, and 72% of them showed significant improvement in their oromotor functions, which further supported the statement.
However, most patients would only do swallowing exercises in the presence of a speech therapist in therapy sessions. During the COVID-19 pandemic, many clinical sessions changed from face- to-face to online mode, and this approach is very likely to continue under the new normal. Yet, most elderly are non-tech savvy, which might hinder them from getting treatment effectively. Considering this, it is necessary for new methods to be introduced to assist and encourage the elderly to have speech therapy.
Our idea is to create a healthcare app, which provides oral-motor muscles exercises to patients with swallowing difficulties. Apart from exercises, it offers health-related information and a new way for patients to communicate with speech therapists.
app and complete their tasks with ease**
Since our target users are elderly, a clean, easy-to-understand interface is crucial as they are generally non-tech savvy. Moreover, a pleasant interface is a key to maintaining users’ interest in using this application.
of doing speech-therapy exercises regularly**