It seems obvious—via the quantitative results of Figures 5 and 6—that Syringe R requires less newtons of isometric force to be exerted on the plunger. AWESOME. WIN. IT WORKS. But are we supposed to consider that the end? The cure? I read through this article with tinges of skepticism.
First, this is essentially an advertisement, no?
Second, how did Smart Design arrive at this syringe redesign in the first place? I’m not suggesting that the design was ill-informed, but rather that I’m just plain curious; I want to know the originating design factors and inspirations before I read test results!
Or, how the hell do people with rheumatoid arthritis get the tourniquet on? Did anyone else wonder this? It’s a critical step in self-injection of any kind. Leaps and bounds in syringe design are left meaningless if the patient still painfully struggles to prep the injection site. They touched on common RA injection sites (leg, abdomen) but did not address tourniquet use.
Also, the article opens with a simple declaration: shifting to self-administration in RA treatment means pursuing more thorough understanding of the patient’s ability to self-inject. The researchers acknowledged that there are variations in injection abilities by enlisting a test group of subjects with distinctly varying disease severity. GREAT. But they left out many qualitative factors: they neglected to touch on variation in syringe / medicine distribution comfort / experience. This is critical. They also neglected to survey the subjects’ previous injection preference (auto injector VS pre-filled syringe). Bringing me to my next question: how could this data be used to draft a more ergonomic auto-injector? Because, despite not being mentioned in this study, many clinical trials ( eg. http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00094341 ) have suggested that auto-injection is currently preferred. Is it not a more ideal option to pursue the development of an apparatus that more closely resembled the “pager pumps” used by diabetics? A system which assumes near-full integration with the body.
In the end, the article felt like an over-simplified advertisement for a Smart Design product under the guise of a published journal article. … But what do I know?
AFTERTHOUGHT:
Why was feminine/masculine one of the design attributes? If this relevant? I thought Dan Formosa was about functionality for all genders not gendering product?