Human Research Coordination

Dressing is an important task that people engage in multiple times daily and that can be challenging for people with impaired use of one or both arms. Fasteners, such as zippers, buttons, and snaps, can be especially challenging for people with arm movement impairments to manage. The purpose of this project is to identify the challenges and needs that people with impaired arm movements have related to dressing overall and fasteners in particular, to learn about the solutions people have implemented to support them in dressing, and to determine which aspects of fasteners are most important to people (e.g., ease of use, appearance, size, time to fasten/unfasten). The study involves one visit that includes an interview and evaluation of arm movement ability.

Individuals 18 years or older and able to travel to the STAR Campus in Newark.
Participants must be older than 18 years of age at the time of enrollment, have reported impairment using one or both hands to secure/unsecure common fasteners (i.e., zippers, buttons, snaps, hooks, hook-and-loop) such that the person requires assistance from another person, a tool, or a significant amount of time to align, stabilize, mobilize, and/or generate the force required to secure/unsecure common fasteners, communicates using English, cognitive ability to complete the informed consent process evidenced by the ability to correctly answer the capacity to consent questions (attached), and ability and availability to travel to UD’s STAR Campus to participate in the approximately 2-hour long interview and evaluation.
Exclusion criteria include reports of uncorrected vision problems that limit proximal vision and would interfere with the assessments to be performed, physical absence of both arms without at least one upper extremity prosthesis, and absence of active range of motion in both arms or hands such that they reportedly cannot move either hand to their belly button, mouth, or top of their head (e.g., paralysis or significant weakness).

CHRC will handle these logistics. Jenn Marmon is the CHRC study lead.