Fighting Pain and Injection Fears...

Ask any kid: a soft cuddly stuffed toy can help with sleep and anxiety. Can a soft robot, worn and clenched by a person in pain or fearing an injection, also provide comfort? What if it clenches back? Researchers developed a soft, wearable robot with airbags and tested/compared scenarios:

• The patient clutching the robot, but the robot not moving—no feedback
• The robot randomly inflated to clench, whether or not the patient clenched it—random feedback
• The robot clenched back when the patient clenched it—a response feedback

The measures below were obtained from 72 healthy patients. When participants wore the robot:

• Their Pain Assessment Scale was reduced
• Salivary oxytocin and cortisol levels in a posthoc comparison were lower
• A significant decrease was seen in participants’ fear of injections after participation in the experiment
• Psychological state: posthoc comparison showed a significantly higher happiness state if they wore the robot

Despite various limitations, the “study demonstrated the potential of social soft robotics and human-robot interaction in alleviating human pain/fear. …incorporating the latest augmented reality technology into the robot (e.g., by wearing a head-mounted display) will enable the introduction of further social human-robot interaction features, such as dialogue between the robot and the human. These potential research avenues will aid the development of solutions to pain/fear alleviation during medical procedures, such as vaccinations.”

 

Read the journal article.

Other Categories:

• chronic pain

• pain management

• research/study

• stress

• technology/robotics

• vaccine

• wearable technology