| dc.description.abstract | Parkinson’s Disease (PD) is the second most common neurodegenerative disease, affecting more than 10 million people worldwide. It is a progressive disease that includes both neurological and motor symptoms. Research has shown that physical therapy and exercise can be valuable tools in managing the symptoms of the disease and in deceleration of the severity. However, the symptoms together with limited access to neurorehabilitation facilities, and physiotherapists, mean that commitment to exercise is a demanding task for people with Parkinson’s Disease. In this master project a smartphone application that allows the creation of personalized workout routines, guides, and motivates the patients was developed to address this issue and improve exercise adherence. The symptoms of PD can result in deterioration of psychomotor abilities and poor manual dexterity. To ensure that the impediments experienced by people with PD when interacting with touchscreens were accommodated, the design followed specialized guidelines and recommendations for people with PD discovered in the literature review. The applications were then further evaluated based on accessibility testing software and also manual evaluation based on the principles of universal design. This study did not include user testing, therefore further work is recommended to observe changes in exercise adherence over a longer period of time. | en_US |
