Co-Ideating a Digital Pain Companion: Exploring How Music Can Support Daily Chronic Pain Self-Management

This work explores the co-ideation of the Digital Pain Companion, a co-design proposal for a music-integrating wearable interface to improve self-management and person-centred care in chronic pain. We conducted two co-design workshops, informed by preliminary interviews, to explore the potential role and design of music-integrating technology in supporting daily pain self-management, particularly when interacting with the psychosocial dimensions of chronic pain. Our findings suggest that designing music-integrating technology to support daily psychosocial experience of pain needs to be more about distraction, self- selection, communication, and somaesthetic appreciation, rather than the design of the music itself and/or the acceleration of physical performance. The body emerged as central to the psychosocial experience of pain, linked not only to physical movement but also to embodied forms of psychological tension. We identified early evidence for two design opportunities—personal and social interaction—through which the Digital Pain Companion and similar interfaces could operate to increase ownership over the pain experience, facilitate effective pain communication, and reduce associated stigma. We contribute empirical and conceptual insights into how music can mediate the psychosocial experience of chronic pain, offering design implications for multimodal, person-centred technologies in digital healthcare and for the broader use of music-supported interventions in chronic health management.