Android Robot-Patient for Teaching and Training of Delirium Assessment Instruments: A Pilot Study

Educating and training medical staff in the Confusion Assessment Method for the Intensive Care Unit (CAM-ICU) is time-consuming and complex. This paper presents a pilot study of a prospective CAM-ICU training scenario for the CAM-ICU using an android robot-patient (ARP). The scenario is a two-stage concept including a short interactive presentation and a hands-on exercise. During the hands-on part, we compared an ARP with a simulated patient (SP), both imitating specific behaviors of patients with delirium. A questionnaire was used to evaluate the use of the ARP as a teaching, training, and assessment method. During the study, none of the participants had any difficulty performing the CAM-ICU or using the ARP, and all participants could imagine training with the ARP again. This leads to the conclusion that the ARP is a suitable, flexible and risk-free training method for the CAM-ICU.