Meet MEDi: a robot designed to help children in hospital manage pain, anxiety

An Edmonton researcher helps develop a brand new model of an interactive humanoid robotic to assist kids in hospital handle ache by way of distraction.

Dr. Samina Ali, a pediatric emergency doctor at Edmonton’s Stollery Children’s Hospital, says the unique MEDi – Medicine and Engineering Designed Intelligence – was a giant success.

It was proven to assist ease kids’s stress and nervousness when present process medical procedures in hospital.

“There are sort of two aspects to a difficult procedure,” mentioned Ali, who can also be a professor of pediatrics and emergency drugs on the University of Alberta. “One is the bodily ache, and one is the emotional build-up and nervousness.

“So we have great creams and medication to help with the pain, but we also need to address the psychological part of being scared of the needle. And the robot was fantastic for that.”

Now researchers are creating a brand new and extra superior robotic.

“We will see if this robot is able to read the room better,” mentioned the doctor. “So if the child is happy or upset with their interaction, it can adjust its script accordingly.”

Testing for usability subsequent 12 months

Ali says testing for usability on the up to date iteration of MEDi will start within the new 12 months. Testing will begin with households within the emergency division, adopted by a scientific trial six to 12 months after that.

The programming of the brand new robotic began in 2020 and is a collaboration between 4 universities in Canada: University of Alberta, Toronto Metropolitan University, McMaster University and University of Toronto. Two universities in Scotland are additionally concerned: University of Glasgow and Heriot-Watt University.

“We’re going through all of the phases of developing it. We are currently about two years into that project, and we are now almost ready.”

Long-term results of ignoring kids’s anxieties

While on the floor MEDi could seem “fun and light” as merely a distraction device to enhance a baby’s hospital expertise, Ali says there are essential short- and long-term results as nicely.

“If we ignore children’s pain and distress around medical procedures, it has immediate short-term consequences,” she mentioned. “They get stressed, we will’t do the process, they’ve horrible recollections.

“Long time period, it could truly impression how they understand future ache. They can begin avoiding well being care. And so it could trigger unhealthy health-care behaviours as adults, and needle-phobia is likely one of the huge ones.

“It’s an investment for a healthier future for Canada.”

Ali says IV insertions are among the many most carried out procedures for kids looking for medical care, and are sometimes a painful and aggravating expertise for each kids and their caregivers. The robotic was used throughout this process for analysis and located it helped to make the expertise much less painful

“It made them less stressed,” she mentioned.

Trial and error to find out greatest tech

Before the unique MEDi was created, it took some trial and error earlier than researchers decided an interactive robotic was the perfect know-how to discover at size.

“We’ve tried a whole bunch of things,” mentioned Ali. “We started with iPads, virtual reality goggles, and then at one point we moved onto robots because they are novel, kids aren’t familiar with them, maybe that will capture their attention and help them experience less pain and stress during procedures.”

MEDi robotic has been used for analysis on the Stollery since 2017.

Part of the testing included sending MEDi into the ready room on the Stollery.

“And so we had the robot explain to the adults in the wait room why their children are waiting, and how to cope with that stress during that time,” mentioned Ali. “And we actually found that it reduced the stress and improved the satisfaction for the parents, even before they saw a doctor.”

The Edmonton researcher says she is at the moment working with Stollery administration to carry MEDi into circulation – past the analysis stage.

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