Communication Technology
Touchscreen device to ‘calm and de-stress’
A highly experienced former psychiatric nurse until recently innovation manager at the Eindhoven Mental Health Institute in the Netherlands, and a PhD holder in physics who spent several years at Philips Healthcare, have jointly developed an interactive ‘communication wall’ designed primarily as a communication tool for, and as a means to help ‘de-stress’, patients in inpatient mental health facilities. The Network’s editor, Jonathan Baillie, reports on the Recornect ‘Cowall’.
Speaking at the 2013 Design in Mental Health (DIMH) Conference in Solihull back in May 2013, when they first introduced their Cowall concept to a UK audience, former psychiatric nurse, Erik Kuijpers, and his co-developer, Cor Datema, (the latter was at the time still an employee of the Philips Healthcare Ambient Experience business), explained that recent years had seen Dutch mental healthcare professionals seek an effective alternative method of ‘calming’ anxious, and potentially aggressive, inpatients in mental healthcare facilities to the long-established practice of ‘seclusion and restraint’. Experience had shown that ‘seclusion and restraint’, a system used in mental healthcare circles in the Netherlands for several years, could actually be counter- productive, frequently making inpatients feel more ‘isolated’, less ‘in control’ of their own surroundings, and potentially even more distressed. The Dutch Government and policy- makers had also made clear their keenness to see use of the practice significantly reduced.
A DIFFERENT APPROACH DEVISED Erik Kuijpers and Cor Datema explained, at the May 2013 DIMH event, that, as an alternative to segregating such patients, often in a small, ‘institutional-feeling’ room behind a closed door, a group of Dutch mental healthcare professionals (including the pair) had come together to devise an alternative, more ‘humane’ approach, in which, rather than being ‘segregated’ for any lengthy period, the anxious and distressed inpatient would gradually progress sequentially, accompanied by staff, through a number of different rooms – a Comfort Room, a Support Room and, if necessary, a Seclusion Room. The end goal was to try to restore their equilibrium more ‘humanely’, enabling them to be returned to their room or a ward feeling calmer, more relaxed, and less anxious. One of the keys was to design each of the three room ‘types’ in a way that made the ‘spaces’ feel less institutional and threatening, and instead more relaxing, while simultaneously returning a
feeling of a degree of control to the patient. It was with this philosophy in mind that the development of the first Cowall took place.
QUESTIONING OF SERVICE-USERS AND STAFF Erik Kuijpers said: “We initially developed the Cowall as tool for de-escalation, and to reduce seclusion and restraint. One of the key things we wanted to demonstrate in developing it is that incidents of patient distress are not just about aggression, which can be sometimes be a positive thing, but are also about the patient feeling they have lost any element of control over their circumstances. Returning some of that control helps to restore their equilibrium.
SERVICE-USER AND STAFF FEEDBACK “During our research in developing the Cowall,” he continued, “we talked extensively to service- users about the elements in, say, a Support or Seclusion Room that would help them regain that equilibrium. We also interviewed healthcare workers to make sure that all the criteria and requirements they felt were key were met – in both the design of the rooms, and indeed in the Cowall itself.”
The Cowall is made of special safety glass, and enables patients within a medium to high secure space ‘to communicate, interact, and receive support’. Staff can remotely control which applications are accessible to a particular service-user. Depending on the environment/patient, various ‘apps’ can be provided through user profiles, including video calling, radio and television, drawing, a notepad, games, access information, and control of the environment.
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A service-user in seclusion, ‘calming down’ after an incident. THE NETWORK
January 2015
WIDER APPLICATION POTENTIAL “In the future, alongside use in mental healthcare accommodation,” Erik Kuijpers explained when I met with him and Cor Datema in July 2014 during the first of two recent trips to England, “we can envisage the system being used in facilities for those with learning disabilities, as well as in a wide range of applications in child, youth, and elderly care homes, prisons, police stations, hospitals, and schools.” With the various functions accessed by means of secure ‘touch modules’ on the interactive Cowall screen, Erik Kuijpers explained that, in essence, Recornect’s ‘product’ is a software platform based around ‘apps’. To illustrate this, he and Cor Datema ran through some of the available features. Erik Kuijpers explained: “Let’s begin with the nurse call
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