Stuck in bed | How the design of a hospice room impacts patient experience

STUCK IN BED: design factors impacting quality of life for patients with limited mobility receiving inpatient palliative care - Dr Maxine Glanger - $9922

Researchers find inspiration for their work in a variety of places. In the case of this project, it was a fridge.

More specifically, the ability of a palliative care patient to access a drink from a bar fridge, without assistance.  

Many factors impact mobility for patients with life-limiting illness. Examples include movement-related pain from bone metastases, frailty related to cancer and neurological impairment – such as with motor neurone disease.

So, after noticing a bed-bound patient was unable to reach their fridge to help themselves to a drink, staff decided to place the fridge on trolley so it could be moved to the patient.

This then led to the question: how does the design of a space impact people with limited mobility?

Many patients live with poor mobility for weeks to months before death and can spend much of their remaining life “stuck in bed” in a care facility.

In Northern Tasmania, a new public Inpatient Patient Care Unit (IPCU) has received funding and is in predevelopment phase.

“It’s all about improved, patient-centred design for palliative care patients.”

Dr Maxine Glanger

This study will seek the opinions of these people about their experience of being a patient in a palliative care unit (hospice).

As lead researcher Dr Maxine Glanger explained, the palliative care team want to understand how the design of hospice room helps or worsens a patient’s symptoms, sense of independence and quality of life.

“People hate losing their independence. It’s one of the big things we try to address in palliative care,” she said.

“It also often drives a desire for accelerating their death.

“So, if we can create a truly patient-centred environment, where they can actually have some control over their space, our hypotheses is that it will increase a person’s sense of independence and wellbeing.”

Fifth year medical students Jessica Hall and Erin Donoghue have been enlisted as student researchers for the study, which will also ask patients and their carers for their ideas to make hospice room design better.

Other members of this research team include Associate Professor Odette Spruijt (Medical Director of Specialist Palliative Care North) and Peter Westcoast (Palliative Care Clinical Nurse Specialist for SPCS North).

It is hoped that this research will help inform the design of the future ICPU unit.

“We are hoping our research will help inform that development, and possibly inform people designing other hospice facilities in the future,” Dr Glanger said.

“It’s all about improved, patient-centred design for palliative care patients to improve their independence and dignity, even when they become immobile.”

About the researcher

Dr Glanger is a Palliative Medicine Specialist with the Specialist Palliative Care Service, Primary Health North.

Originally from Sydney, she worked as a general practitioner for more than 25 years before changing fields and completing her specialist palliative care training.

She said she was drawn to the beauty of Tasmania, and now proudly calls it her home, and is based out of the Allambi Building in Launceston.