Affective association with and preference for flexible brace colors in older adults with spinal deformities

Abstract

Patients with adult spinal deformities, often suffer from the physical shortcomings of rigid braces and psychological hurdles of traditional rigid bracing treatment. The color of flexible braces is a physical element that influences user perception and treatment acceptance. This study aims to investigate the affective valence and preferences of patients with adult spinal deformities toward contextless colors and flexible brace colors, respectively, then understand their color requirements of flexible braces in terms of the color attributes (lightness and chroma). A total of 32 Chinese participants with adult spinal deformities (25 females and 7 males aged 61.9 ± 4.16) participated in the study. Participants are required to score 36 contextless and brace colors using the affective appraisal scale and the colors are measured using spectrophotometer. The experimental results showed that context is an important factor in influencing the affective perception but not the color preferences of participants. Adult spinal deformities patients have a more positive affective connotations toward the brace color with lighter achromatic shades. This study provides new insights for the choosing of colors during the design process of medical orthoses.

Colour‐emotion association and colour preference for elder care robot appearance

“…Finding the right colours can help the elderly to reduce irritability and loneliness. Chung et al 82 mention that colour is an important factor that affects the function of a medical institution, and that clothing colour helps to stabilise patients' emotions.…”