Ending the single versus multi-bedroom debate: hybrid rooms meet stroke rehabilitation needs

Stroke is a leading cause of disability worldwide, and stroke rehabilitation plays a critical role in recovery. Early rehabilitation often occurs in a hospital setting, but the hospital built environment is rarely designed to support the specific needs and priorities of people who have had a stroke. In recent decades, there has been an ongoing debate regarding the benefits of single versus multi-bed rooms in healthcare settings. This debate centres around balancing privacy and rest, with social interaction and safety. While single rooms may be beneficial for some people, multi-bed rooms may be better for others. Both options, however, come with their own set of drawbacks in the context of stroke rehabilitation. In this study, we conducted a collaborative Living Lab to design a series of provocative-prototype hybrid room typologies that merged different aspects of single and multi-bed rooms to provide options specific for stroke rehabilitation. These typologies were used to generate four alternative bedroom designs which were modelled in virtual reality. The designs were informed by a values-based brief, outlining a set of predefined key criteria for optimising stroke rehabilitation environments: opportunities for activity and rest, wellbeing, safety, efficiency, flexibility, personal control, access to outdoors and green space, and access to a positive and stimulating environment. Twenty lived-experience and professional experts evaluated these virtual designs against the predefined values-based criteria. Evaluation revealed two preferred hybrid hospital room designs that incorporated beneficial features of both multi-bed and single-bed rooms. Our approach of values-based design and evaluation within a virtual environment proved an effective means of generating and evaluating design options with meaningful input from a wide range of stakeholders. These findings highlight the potential for flexible and adaptable room design to meet the specific needs and priorities of people participating in early-stage rehabilitation after stroke.