The Aesthetics of Health Care Technology

9.3.2010

While the functions of the insulin pump are highly developed, the aesthetics are overlooked. The aesthetics of health care devices such as the insulin pump have power in improving ones ability to care for oneself. Aesthetics of our environment, our living space, work space, and public space have huge influence on our quality of life. And the aesthetics of life supporting technology has a huge impact on the function of these machines.

With a chronic disease such as Type 1 Diabetes, the care is never ending. It doesn’t stop when you go to bed, when you have sex, or when you’re on vacation. It is twenty-four seven. I have had it for 18 years and although technology has improved by leaps and bounds in the past 40 years (there have been 3 noble prizes awarded to insulin and diabetic technologies), the end (a cure) is not in sight. When I was diagnosed the Joslin said there would be a cure in five years, five years later they said the same date, on and on.

I switched to the Animas Ping pump in July 2010, two months ago. I have a relationship with my pump, I wear it about 23 hours a day. It is connected to me, to my body, to my flesh. If you pull it, or the little twenty-three inch tube gets caught, I come with it, uncomfortably. After thousands of years of development, my body does not have any shelf space for this machine. When I am dressed, I clip it to my pants. When I am naked, when I change clothes, when I shower, there is nothing to clip the machine to. Sometimes I hold it in my mouth, or in between my legs, sometimes I rest it on my bed and am careful not to move much to far from it. I have thought about sewing a button, a piece of Velcro, a small pouch to the side of stomach. When I was young I dreamed of a small closet, in my abdomen that would carry my kit of insulin.

As the pump is connected to me, it is much closer to me, more a part of me, than my kit of insulin and needles ever was. The pump is close to acting like a pancreas. It gives me a basal rate of insulin, .07 units every 3 minutes or so. When I eat, I tell it how many carbohydrates I will consume, test my blood sugar and it decides, based on its programming, how much insulin I need. I punch that number in and it vibrates and sends a precise amount of insulin through the tube into my interstitial tissue. As long as my port is not placed where I have scar tissue, my flesh absorbs the insulin and it is used to process the carbohydrates I eat into energy. There is a finite amount of absorptive flesh. My pancreas, is small and black, rectangular, compact, and outside of my body. Could it be any more foreign? At least we speak a similar language, at least I am technology friendly and it hasn’t been hard to understand what my pumps functions are.

I have a relationship to my computer, I feel connected to it. It is silver, it has rounded edges, the screen is sensitive and matte. It is soft and warm. The trash looks like a trash and I can pick up a piece of paper that I see on my desktop and drag it into the trashcan. It makes a crumbly sound when it goes in, kind of like what it sounds like when I do that in sitting at the desk. Macintosh has done an incredible job developing the design of their products. They have artists working with programmers to design and build the interface. The technology is incredibly personable and relatable. In contrast to PC computers, which are much harder to navigate. Using a PC, I feel like I am interacting with a machine, a hard piece of technology that does not speak the same language as I. With Macintosh computers, the form carries the function. My computer feels like a friend, a partner. My pump feels like an addition, somewhat of an alien.