CALMER, the non-Mom | Sensory Perception & Interaction, Research Group

Start Year

2009

Designed as a bland, unobtrusive appliance, Calmer is perceived by mothers and health-care staff as a high-tech bed for premature infants. Calmer's blank-slate appearance and replication of mother's breathing movement and heart rate gives mothers of premature infants the sense that the bed strengthens their connection and allows them to support their babies peripherally.

SPIN People

Karon MacLean

Non Spin people

Liisa Holsti

Publications

Ranger, M., Albert, A., MacLean, K.E., & Holsti, L. "Cerebral hemodynamic response to a therapeutic bed for procedural pain management in preterm infants in the NICU: a randomized controlled trial," Pain Reports, e890, 1-9, 2021.

Hauser, S., Suto, M., Holsti, L., Ranger, M. & MacLean, K. E. "Designing and Evaluating Calmer, a Device for Simulating Maternal Skin-to-Skin Holding for Premature Infants." ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI’20), 2020, pp. 1-11.

Holsti, L., MacLean, K. E., Oberlander, T., Synnes, A., & Brant, R. "Calmer: A Robot for Managing Acute Pain Effectively in Preterm Infants in the NICU." Pain Reports, 4(2), 2019, pgs. 1-6.

Williams, N., MacLean, K. E., Guan, L., Collet, J. P., & Holsti, L. (2019). "Pilot Testing a Robot for Reducing Pain in Hospitalized Preterm Infants." Occupational Therapy Journal of Research (OTJR): Occupation, Participation & Health.