Photo opportunity 2pm, Thursday 26 September, Seminar Room, King's Cross Hospital, Clepington Road, Dundee
An innovative new system developed at the University of Dundee to help people in intensive care communicate with relatives and friends is being showcased this afternoon at King's Cross Hospital.
Incubated patients who are on breathing assistance equipment temporarily lose use of their vocal chords as there is no air passing through the tract. Researchers in the Division of Applied Computing have come up with a system where patients can select phrases by means of a switch attached to any part of their body which can move.
With this switch or by touching the screen, the patients select a topic and then are given a choice of phrases such as "I would like a glass of water" which is then spoken through a speech output system. The team have also developed its capacity for personal questions so patients can ask about members of their family, their pets or about their favourite TV programme. These phrases have all been selected after an acute observation process of patients in intensive care.
Professor Ian Ricketts, the new head of the Division of Applied Computing at the University of Dundee led a team of researchers to develop this ICU talk system. He will be showing health professionals the technology this afternoon and exploring how they can and take the project forward.
Ian Ricketts was appointed head of the Division of Applied Computing on 1 August succeeding Professor Alan Newell who held the post for 22 years. Alan is one of three professors of applied computing in the division and will be continuing his research on IT for elderly people.
The project is a multi-disciplinary, collaborative project involving staff from Dundee Speech and Language Therapy, Ninewells' Intensive Care Unit and the University of Dundee's Division of Applied Computing and School of Nursing. The three year research and development project is staffed by a software engineer, an ICU nurse, a speech and language therapist and a doctoral student.
By Jenny Marra, Press Officer 01382 344910 j.m.marra@dundee.ac.uk