Scared of injections? Try a wearable soft robot to ease aversion to needles

#Discussion(General) [ via IoTGroup ]

While most of us are never without our smartphones robots may also soon become indispensable companions.It certainly seems so based on the recent experiments conducted by researchers in Japan who developed a hand-held soft robot that can improve the experience of patients while undergoing potentially unpleasant medical procedures such as injections.

While the problems of patient anxiety and pain during medical procedures have been well studied there remains a need to test and implement solutions to help patients.In a recently published study in Scientific Reports researchers at the University of Tsukuba have developed a wearable soft robot for patients to use during treatments in an attempt to ease their pain.On being subjected to a moderate heat stimulus the study participants who wore the robot experienced less pain than in the tests in which they did not wear the robot.

“Our results suggest that the use of wearable soft robots may reduce fear as well as alleviate the perception of pain during medical treatments including vaccinations ” says senior author Professor Fumihide Tanaka.The soft fur-covered robot the scientists called Reliebo was designed to be attached to the participant’s hand; it contained small airbags that could inflate in response to hand movements.The researchers tested its effectiveness under various conditions based on the clenching of the participant’s hand while applying the painful thermal stimulus to the other arm that was not being used to hold the robot.Additionally subjective pain ratings were recorded using an assessment scale and a survey test was conducted to evaluate the patients’ fear of injections and psychological state before and after the experiments.The researchers found that holding the robot helped relieve the experience for patients regardless of the experimental conditions used and speculated that the feelings of well-being that can be created by human touch may have also been activated by the robot.

“It is well

Read More..
AutoTextExtraction by Working BoT using SmartNews 1.03976957683 Build 04 April 2020