Impact of a social humanoid robot as a therapy assistant in children cancer treatment

Abstract

Treating cancer encompasses many invasive procedures that can be a source of distress in oncology patients. Distress itself can be a major obstruction in the path of acceptance of treatment and the patient's adaptation to it, thereby reducing its efficiency. These distress symptoms have been found to be prevalent in children suffering from cancer, in a spectrum from mild to critical. In the past years in response to this psychological suffering, researchers have proposed and tested several methods such as relaxation, hypnosis, desensitization, and distraction. This paper propounds a new approach by exploring the effect of utilizing a humanoid robot as a therapy-assistive tool in dealing with pediatric distress. Ten children, ages 6-10, diagnosed with cancer were randomly assigned into two groups of SRAT (5 kids) and psychotherapy (5 kids) at two specialized hospitals in Tehran. A NAO robot was programmed and employed as a robotic assistant to a psychologist in the SRAT group to perform various scenarios in eight intervention sessions. The promising results of this study in the level of anger, depression, and anxiety could render using social robots applicable in psychological interventions for children with cancer. Results of this study shall be beneficial to psychologists, oncologists, and robot specialists.