Engineering for psychiatry: a case study

Abstract

To what extent can engineering be put to the use of psychiatry? Can a smart musical device help relieve patients with serious psychiatric pathologies during seclusion? With a view to answering these questions, a musical device called AMENHOTEP was developed in 2014 in line with the safety standards of seclusion rooms in the intensive care units (ICUs) of psychiatric hospitals [1] and validated in Switzerland and France by the Patient Safety Officers. The device is designed to withstand the physical outbursts of patients, which can be extremely violent. It consists of two interactive platforms, one placed in an ICU, the other in the caregivers’ room. It allows the patient to choose to play one of four categories of music, each associated with a particular emotion: joyful activation, calm, nostalgia, tension. A first study, with qualitative results presented in [4], involved 12 weeks of interviews with the six caregivers [N1-6] of the five patients [P1-5] who were placed in an ICU equipped with the music installation. With the aim of highlighting the first, a second study was conducted in 2017 on eleven patients [A111] exclusively on the basis of measurements related to the use of the device. Since this is not the same sample of patients, this perspective should be interpreted with the utmost caution. The device has a simple and ergonomic interface, which allows patients to make choices and take decisions, a mechanism that naturally helps them regain control of themselves. It is also a tool to promote the patient-caregiver relationship, through the interest generated in listening, the musical choices of the patient and the reasons underlying those choices.