Abstract
When you are admitted to a hospital, you enter an often-unfamiliar environment. From a person, you suddenly become a patient. Especially when being transported in a bed, you lose control over where you go and how you interact with the space around you. Many people feel anxious and vulnerable under these conditions. Often the built environment adds to this confusion, whereas it should support patients during their hospital experience. To explore the relation between motion and space, we present a concise literature review on mobile and spatial experience, and sketch the theoretical background on researching motion. To actually study the impact of space and spatial elements on patients' mobile hospital experience, we interviewed 12 patients admitted to the day ward of a general city hospital. The interviews were supported by videos of the transport, which the researchers had previously made. Studying the role of motion in patients' spatial experience of the hospital appeared not to be an easy task. Both methodologically and content wise, we encountered some challenges in bringing to the surface and unravelling those experiences linked to spatial aspects. Despite what one could expect, being moved in a bed does not reduce but rather expands patients' sensory perception. An important interrelation between space, time and people, especially during the transport, was found. By designing space architects thus may have a strong influence on time perception and people interactions.
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Acknowledgments
Margo Annemans’ research is funded by a PhD grant of the Baekeland programme of the Institute for the Promotion of Innovation through Science and Technology in Flanders (IWT-Vlaanderen), which gives researchers the opportunity to complete a PhD in close collaboration with industry, in this case, osar architects nv. Ann Heylighen received support from the European Research Council under the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013)/ERC grant agreement n° 201673. The authors thank the participating patients for sharing their time and insights and the hospital board for their support.
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Annemans, M., Van Audenhove, C.H., Vermolen, H., Heylighen, A. (2014). Being Transported into the Unknown: How Patients Experience the Route to the Operation Room. In: Langdon, P., Lazar, J., Heylighen, A., Dong, H. (eds) Inclusive Designing. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-05095-9_12
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-05095-9_12
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