Abstract:

In order to design functional underwear for daily wearing with the function of relieving waist pain, the Grounded Theory was applied to analyze the interview data abtained from the in-depth interview conducted with 17 target users. The design elements of functional underwear product were determined as follows: size fitness, natural fabric and function acting on the waist. According to ergonomic thinking and point position method in acupoint therapy for waist pain in Chinese traditional medicine, the function area was confirmed. Based on the area design, the tourmaline materials was manufactured in the function area by screen printing to achieve the stimulation of acupuncture points to relieving waist pain. It’s verified that the temperature of the waist of functional underwear rises by 2.78℃ by infrared thermal imager experiment. The visual analog scale (VAS) of clinical measurement was applied to evaluate waist pain in the wearing trials. Paired-samples T test was used to analyze the VAS score. The waist pain is significantly relieved after trialing for 15 d.

Key words: functional underwear, underwear for relieving waist pain, acupuncture point positioningmethod, tourmaline