Providing Emotional Support to Children under Long-Term Health Treatments
Description
Patients under health treatments that involve long
stays at a hospital or health center (e.g. cancer, organ transplants and
severe burns), tend to get bored or depressed because of the lack of
social interaction with family and friends. Such a situation also
affects the evolution and effectiveness of their treatments. In many
cases, the solution to this problem involves extra challenges, since
many patients need to rest quietly (or remain in bed) to their being
contagious. Considering the weak health condition in which usually
are these kinds, keeping them motivated and quiet represents an
important challenge for nurses and caregivers. This article presents a
mobile ubiquitous game called MagicRace, which allows hospitalized
kinds to interact socially with one another without putting to risk
their sensitive health conditions. The game does not require a
communication infrastructure at the hospital, but instead, it uses a
mobile ad hoc network composed of the handheld devices used by
the kids to play. The usability and performance of this application
was tested in two different sessions. The preliminary results show
that users experienced positive feelings from this experience.
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Additional details
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