An Assistive System for Non-vocal Patients in Intensive Care Units

Critical care patients in intensive care units often require mechanical ventilation. This intervention usually involves a loss of the patient’s verbal communication for the duration of the ventilation. The weaning process from ventilation, in particular, causes increased stress. This significantly challenges patients and all others involved in the recovery process. Augmentative and Alternative Communication concepts may offer various options to mitigate this limitation. A novel assistive system for communication, information, and control, based on a ball-shaped interaction device, was designed to meet the needs of these weaning patients. To examine the maturity of the prototype before clinical trials, it was evaluated in a laboratory usability study with healthy elderly adults (N = 22) regarding the learnability of the interaction, suitability for communication purposes, and the overall user experience. The results indicated that participants quickly learned the interaction and could successfully use the system as intended. This provides a solid foundation for a comprehensive field study with the weaning patient population.