Peripheral Display for Conveying Real-time Pain Condition of Persons with Severe Intellectual Disabilities to their Caregivers

An effective assisting tool for caregivers to monitor pain of persons with severe intellectual disabilities (SID) is eagerly needed, since these persons have difficulties with self-report. The Bio response System detecting stress and the techniques with potential to distinguish pain from stress suggest the possibility to detect pain with physiological data. In the current paper, we propose the design of a peripheral display for making caregivers aware of the real-time pain condition of their clients without added attention burden. An iterative user-centered design process resulted in two prototypes and corresponding evaluations of one peripheral display. The potential of the display to help caregivers be promptly aware of the pain condition of clients was tested with targeted users. Guidelines for the design of peripheral display applications in similar semi-hospitalized contexts are provided. Further steps in this study will be to test the adjusted Bio response System for detecting pain in persons with SID adequately.