“I’m Just Overwhelmed”: Investigating Physical Therapy Accessibility and Technology Interventions for People with Disabilities and/or Chronic Conditions

Many individuals with disabilities and/or chronic conditions (da/cc) experience symptoms that may require intermittent or on-going medical care. However, healthcare is an often-overlooked domain for accessibility work, where access needs associated temporary and long-term disability must be addressed to increase the utility of physical digital interactions workers spaces. Our work focuses on a specific often used by da/cc: therapy (PT). Through twelve-person interview study, we examined how people's PT their da/cc hampered social (e.g., physically visiting clinic) physiological pain) barriers, technology could improve access. In-person inaccessible our participants due lack transportation insufficient insurance coverage. As such, many relied at-home manage towards goals. Participants felt such as having particularly bad feeling short time, well-designed flexibly adapts person's dynamically changing while supporting We introduce core design principles (adaptability, movement tracking, community building) tensions (insurance) consider when developing support Rethinking from lens includes barriers presents opportunities integrate adaptability into technology.