Understanding the Mundane Nature of Self-care

Self-care technologies have been influenced by medical values and models. One of the values that was acritically incorporated was that self-care was medicalised, and, as a result, technologies were designed to afford use with clinicians and fit structured medical processes. This paper seeks to broaden the understanding of self-care in HCI, to acknowledge the mundane ways in which self-care is achieved. Drawing on in-depth interviews with patients and carers, and online ethnography of an online community, we describe how the self-care of Parkinson's is mundane. The fieldwork contrasts with more medicalised perspectives on self-care, thus we discuss the properties of a self-care concept that would acknowledge its mundane nature. Our hope is to sensitise designers to identify the mundane ways in which self-care is performed and, consequently, design technologies that better fit the complexities of everyday life with a chronic condition.