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A wearable soft robot that can alleviate the pain and fear of the wearer
Social soft robotics may provide a new solution for alleviating human pain and fear. Here, we introduce a hand-held soft robot that can be clenched by the wearer. The robot comprises small airbags that can be inflated to provide the wearer with a feeling of being clenched. We then conducted an in-de...
Autores principales: | , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Nature Publishing Group UK
2022
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9576738/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36253420 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-21183-7 |
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author | Yim, Youchan Noguchi, Yohei Tanaka, Fumihide |
author_facet | Yim, Youchan Noguchi, Yohei Tanaka, Fumihide |
author_sort | Yim, Youchan |
collection | PubMed |
description | Social soft robotics may provide a new solution for alleviating human pain and fear. Here, we introduce a hand-held soft robot that can be clenched by the wearer. The robot comprises small airbags that can be inflated to provide the wearer with a feeling of being clenched. We then conducted an in-depth study of 66 adults who participated in a pain research protocol using thermal stimulation to investigate the effect of wearing the robot on pain perception and fear of injections. Pain assessment scale scores for perceived pain decreased significantly [Formula: see text] when participants wore the robot compared with the baseline condition in which the robot was not worn. In addition, the saliva test results showed a downward trend in oxytocin level when the robot provided the wearer with haptic feedback via the inflation of the internal airbags in response to the wearer’s clench. Furthermore, the negative psychological state of participants, as measured using the positive and negative affect scale, improved significantly when wearing the robot. We also revealed that the salivary cortisol level, an indicator of stress, decreased significantly across all participants at the end of the experiment. In addition, participants’ fear of injections was significantly improved after participation in the experiment. These results suggest that the wearable soft robot may alleviate the human perception of pain and fear in during medical treatments, such as vaccinations. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-9576738 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2022 |
publisher | Nature Publishing Group UK |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-95767382022-10-19 A wearable soft robot that can alleviate the pain and fear of the wearer Yim, Youchan Noguchi, Yohei Tanaka, Fumihide Sci Rep Article Social soft robotics may provide a new solution for alleviating human pain and fear. Here, we introduce a hand-held soft robot that can be clenched by the wearer. The robot comprises small airbags that can be inflated to provide the wearer with a feeling of being clenched. We then conducted an in-depth study of 66 adults who participated in a pain research protocol using thermal stimulation to investigate the effect of wearing the robot on pain perception and fear of injections. Pain assessment scale scores for perceived pain decreased significantly [Formula: see text] when participants wore the robot compared with the baseline condition in which the robot was not worn. In addition, the saliva test results showed a downward trend in oxytocin level when the robot provided the wearer with haptic feedback via the inflation of the internal airbags in response to the wearer’s clench. Furthermore, the negative psychological state of participants, as measured using the positive and negative affect scale, improved significantly when wearing the robot. We also revealed that the salivary cortisol level, an indicator of stress, decreased significantly across all participants at the end of the experiment. In addition, participants’ fear of injections was significantly improved after participation in the experiment. These results suggest that the wearable soft robot may alleviate the human perception of pain and fear in during medical treatments, such as vaccinations. Nature Publishing Group UK 2022-10-17 /pmc/articles/PMC9576738/ /pubmed/36253420 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-21183-7 Text en © The Author(s) 2022 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . |
spellingShingle | Article Yim, Youchan Noguchi, Yohei Tanaka, Fumihide A wearable soft robot that can alleviate the pain and fear of the wearer |
title | A wearable soft robot that can alleviate the pain and fear of the wearer |
title_full | A wearable soft robot that can alleviate the pain and fear of the wearer |
title_fullStr | A wearable soft robot that can alleviate the pain and fear of the wearer |
title_full_unstemmed | A wearable soft robot that can alleviate the pain and fear of the wearer |
title_short | A wearable soft robot that can alleviate the pain and fear of the wearer |
title_sort | wearable soft robot that can alleviate the pain and fear of the wearer |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9576738/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36253420 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-21183-7 |
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