The objective of this thesis was to seek solution for two challenges daily met in practical work with elderly: dressing upper body cloth might be a challenge and the nurse call -button is a challenging to press. These two challenges are bound in same region of the body and thesis writer was willing to attempt to seek solution for these practical issues. Another aim was to describe the best practices in product development process.

This thesis reports multidisciplinary product development process of an upper body cloth that has a nurse call – button attached. This thesis followed the Design Thinking process and included the four tangible prototypes, four different workshops and a laboratory study. The Smart Jacket is multidisciplinary creation by professionals of Satakunta University of Applied Sciences, Tampere University, and professionals in Senior Care.

Smart Jacket is the end result of this thesis. This upper body cloth can be dressed on without moving shoulder joints. Nurse call -button is attached on chest and it does not need any fine motoric skills to operate. Smart Jacket is a decent example of collaboration: all stakeholders contributed to development of Smart Jacket. The nurse call -button works with passive ultra-high-frequency (UHF) Radio Frequency IDentification technology. The laboratory study’s results are promising: Smart Jacket’s nurse call -button is operative and approve that it could be applied in practical use. The reading range on person is approximately 4,3 meters (in 867,6MHz) which might indicate reasonable potential to imbed this kind of alarm system in health care facilities in future. Further studies are needed how the described technology could be implemented indoor use. Further research is also needed to study the products suitability with other user groups.