The well-being of children is hard to assess. Nevertheless, it is very important to keep an eye on the well-being of a child. If a child is in pain, medical interventions must be applied. Pain assessments are mostly subjective. The most used tools are scales that score the intensity of the pain. If the patient is a young child that is unable to verbally state the intensity of pain, the behaviour of the child is observed. Together with tools for the behaviour of a child, the intensity of the pain is estimated. Additionally, the hospital environment can be very stressful, which could lead to a communication barrier between the child and the healthcare provider.
Currently, there are a few physiological parameters that can also be measured that are related to pain. This contributes to the objectivity of measurements. One of these tools is an artificial intelligence-enabled sock that measures skin conductivity. Furthermore, very promising research has explored the use of robotics to reduce pain and stress by the use of play, therefore improving the well-being of a child. As a followup to this research, a master's thesis was conducted to research creating a pre-operative history between the child and the robot, which stimulates interaction.
Therefore, it can be concluded that very promising techniques are currently being researched. However, there remains an opportunity to enhance these projects further. The robot is a great intervention to distract the child, and the sock to measure skin conductivity is a very promising objective method for pain measurements. However, there is still a lack of a tangible tool that allows active interaction between the child and the robot and also measures physiological parameters. The physiological measurements could be combined with the behavioural data that could be combined to assess the well-being of the child. This means that it could serve as a new diagnostical tool.
Thus, as a research proposition, a tangible extension of the robot will be protoyped and tested. This prototype includes sensors for measuring the physiological parameters of the body as well as for the behaviour of the child. The object will be integrated with the robot using ROS. This means that the robot will react to the data it receives from the tool's sensors. The data will also be analyzed to investigate its potential as a diagnostic tool for pain measurements. If the hypothesis is correct, this new tool can replace the observational scales that are currently used. This will increase objectivity and, therefore, accuracy and will save the hospital staff time. Next to that, the intervention is more joyful for children, making the hospital visit less stressful.