An innovative new system developed at the University of Dundee to help people in intensive care communicate with relatives and friends has been selected for a British Computer Society Award medal.
The panel unanimously decided that the University of Dundee project was a worthy member of the final group of 9 medallists in a competition open to all UK companies and universities. Professor Ian Ricketts, the new head of the Division of Applied Computing led a team of researchers to develop the ICU talk system. He will attend an award ceremony along with other members of the team in London next month where they will demonstrate the project and may yet secure the overall title of British Computer Society Award for IT.
Professor Ricketts welcomed news of the award saying: "This award recognises the importance of a multidisciplinary approach to solving complex problems and particularly that computer technology can help improve the quality of life of people with communication needs."
Intubated patients are those receiving assistance with their breathing and temporarily unable to speak because there is no airflow to their vocal chords. To help them overcome this disability, the ICU-Talk research team have produced a computer based system which allows the patient to 'speak' by selecting a phrase from one of over 200 collected from observing intubated patients communicating within the Intensive Care Unit at Ninewells hospital.
ICU patients, who wish to communicate, can use a touch screen or suitable switch to select a topic and they are then given a choice of phrases such as "I need a drink" or " How is my son?" which if selected is spoken via a speech output system. The team have also developed a computer based interview system for use by the relatives of ICU patients. From this interview information is gathered about the patient's family, their pets and other interests, including their favourite TV programmes. This information is used to personalise the phrases available to patients so they can ask, "Is someone collecting my son James from the school?" using the ICU-Talk device.
The project is a multi-disciplinary, collaborative project involving staff from Dundee Speech and Language Therapy, Ninewells' Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and the University of Dundee's Division of Applied Computing and School of Nursing.
The three year research and development project was staffed by a software engineer, an ICU nurse, a speech and language therapist and a doctoral student and funded by the UK Engineering and Physical Science Research Council.
By Jenny Marra, Press Officer 01382 344910 j.m.marra@dundee.ac.uk