Robotic Therapy May Reduce Pain and Anxiety Among Pediatric Patients

Companionship offers an important physical connection throughout life, and especially for those coping with the pain, stress and emotional effects of a serious illness, this can be even more of a necessity. A new study shows that robotic animals may offer some benefits to those with health issues that require personal care.

According to Sandra Okita, Ph.D., Columbia University, the effectiveness of robotic companions was evaluated to reduce feelings of pain and emotional anxiety among pediatric patients and their parents. In the article, "Self-Other's Perspective Taking: The Use of Therapeutic Robot Companions as Social Agents for Reducing Pain and Anxiety in pediatric Patients," Orkita reports that when a child and parent were together during a robotic therapy session, the patient's pain decreased significantly.

Additional findings show that when the parent and child were together for the robot therapy sessions, as the parent's paint rating decreased, so did the patient's, which the author attributes to "parental modeling," or children. learning how to cope with certain emotions by modeling the behavior of their parents.

"It will be useful to explore in future studies whether the benefit of parental modeling exhibited during the interactions is maintained long-term," said Brenda K. Wiederhold, PhD, MBA, BCIA, Editor-in-Chief of Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, from the Interactive Media Institute, San Diego, CA. "It will also be important to understand how we may lower pain and anxiety in children without the presence of their parents, which is of course not always feasible in a hospital setting."

The study is presented in Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is also available free online on the Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking website.