OBJECTIVE To examine the influence of positive distraction on the behavior and activity of children in two clinic waiting areas. BACKGROUND People spend a considerable proportion of time waiting in hospitals. Studies show that the quality of waiting environments influences the perception of quality of care and caregivers, that perception of waiting time is a better indicator of patient satisf...

With the advance of pervasive technology, information from both the physical and virtual world is increasingly accessible to developers. Context-aware applications may consume relevant aspects of this information as they support user tasks. When conveying information to people, the mechanism for presentation must be carefully considered. As ambient devices are centred on the notion of calm-tech...

been proposed. The THG is calibrated to overcome the discrepancies among potentiometers used for robot motion. The performance of the proposed system is tested on a robot with a single joint and the results are presented for a simple closed loop system. The robot is given fast, medium and slow responses as inputs such that a variation of 30 degrees is achieved in time intervals of 1, 2 and 3 se...

Received 8 August 2012 Accepted 8 August 2012 Background In the July 2012 issue of this Journal I reported back on the experiences of psychosexual therapists. Their voices clearly and movingly described their motivations, their training, their challenges, their magic moments – and their hope for a deeper connection between the medical and therapeutic worlds when it comes to acknowledging and ac...

Interactions in and with the physical world have enabled us to perform everyday activities in the periphery of our attention. Even though digital technologies are becoming increasingly present in the everyday environment, interaction with these technologies usually requires people’s focused attention. In the realm of the vision of calm technology, we think that designing interactions with the d...

Study objective: To assess the secondary health impacts of a traffic calming scheme on a community. Methods: Prospective cohort study of a randomly selected sample of the local community using postal questionnaires and pedestrian counts on the affected road six months before and six months after the implementation of the scheme. The setting was a community in which a traffic calming scheme was ...

Medical clowning has been primarily identified with working with children in pediatrics wards in hospitals. Over the past decade, more and more medical clowns have been working with adults and with patients with dementia as part of holistic care. Along with traditional medical care by hospital staff, the medical clown treats the patient's emotional side. Furthermore, medical clowning has unique...