The design challenge

Delirium is the sudden onset of extreme confusion or complete apathy. The patient is no longer able to understand where they are, why they are there and what is happening around them. This definition already demonstrate how different patients can present with delirium. Symptoms can include:

• Hampered short term memory;

• Hallucination;

• Alteration in mental state, e.g. aggression, anxiety or lethargy.

Especially during the last year this has become an important issue: patients with severe cases of COVID-19 have to be put on ventilators, while up to 80% of people on ventilators will experience delirium.

The main design challenge was to create a product that could lower the prevalence of delirium among ICU patients. Stress and unfamiliarity are hypothesised to be two major factors in developing delirium. ICU patients are usually very limited in their movements and speech, which removes two main types of communication. Giving the patient another way to communicate would help nurses and visitors to accommodate the patient’s needs better, reducing stress. Furthermore, creating a more familiar environment can be done by showing familiar images, but also by having face-to-face contact with the ICU patient.