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 Researchers offered eye-trackers to 12 patients on ventilators in
intensive care units (ICUs) at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in
Baltimore, Maryland, during 2013 and 2014. All of the participants
were cognitively capable of communication and able to convey
comprehension by blinking, nodding their head or some other motion.
Tiny cameras followed patients’ eye movements, allowing them to
communicate by staring directly at images and words on a computer
monitor. Once patients got training on how to use the gadgets, the
eye-trackers appeared to help patients feel less confused, happier
and more confident in their ability to communicate.
“Eye-tracking devices may be an effective tool to promote patient
communication and increased psychosocial well-being in selected ICU
patients,” lead study author Jonah Gerry, a researcher at Stony
Brook University School of Medicine in New York, said by email.
The pilot project suggests that using the eye-trackers is feasible
in this setting, and merits further research, Gerry added.
Approximately 40 percent of patients in ICUs require mechanical
ventilation, preventing them from communicating verbally, Gerry and
colleagues note in the journal Surgery.
Many of these patients may also struggle with even the slight body
movements needed for non-verbal communication, making it difficult
for them to signal for help, the researchers note.
Before using the eye-trackers, the patients in the study relied on
mouthing words or blinking to communicate.
During the study, occupational or speech pathology therapists
provided five days of 45-minute training sessions to help patients
learn to use the eye-trackers to spell out notes, indicate their
needs using picture sets, and play memory games.
By the end of the experiment, all of the patients could communicate
basic needs using the eye-trackers by using pre-set pictures or
words on the computer screens, such as “hungry,” “thirsty,”
“bathroom,” “nurse” and “pain.”
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Half of the patients were also able to use the eye-tracker to
hunt-and-peck their way to full sentences on the computer screen by
moving their focus from one letter to the next on a keyboard shown
on the monitor.
Some patients could also use the eye tracker to handle even more
complex jobs like communicating on social media.
One drawback of the eye-trackers is that in order for an ICU patient
to use it properly, an able-bodied person must position it, and even
then patients can struggle to concentrate and maintain the posture
needed to use the device for long periods of time, the researchers
acknowledge.
The study is too small to determine if eye trackers can improve
communication in a broad population of ICU patients or prove whether
the devices are directly responsible for any improvements in mood
that participants experienced during the experiment, the authors
also note.
Tobii Technologies donated the eye-trackers used in the study and
provided a scholarship to Gerry.
“This was a pilot trial to test the feasibility of using
eye-tracking technology to improve communication with patients in
the ICU,” said Dr. Daniel Howes, an emergency medicine specialist at
Queens University in Ontario who wasn’t involved in the study.
While there may be no harm to trying the devices, some patients
might not be able to use them due to their eye color or the shape of
their eyelids, Howes added by email. Others might be too sleepy or
confused to use the devices effectively.
“Ideal patients are those who are mentally intact, can go through
the training and who can’t communicate by other means,” Howes said.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/1RucmtC Surgery, online September 8, 2015.
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