Medical, educational, and engineering study on the effects of multimedia communication on hospitalized children

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1. Analysis of internal change of hospitalized children by multimedia communication environmentWe objectively assessed how multimedia communication inspired hospitalized children. Eight types of special questionnaire forms were used to assess the children's mental condition, and assessment was performed before and after communication was performed several times. A significant increase in the degree of pleasure of subjects after communication was identified, while a significant decrease in the degree of depression, anxiety, impatience, and solitude of subjects after communication was also identified. We thus showed that multimedia communication helps relieve hospitalized children from negative mental afflictions such as anxiety and depression.2. Study of system to be used by hospitalized childrenA communication system was built to help hospitalized children communicate with such institutes as the school they attended before being hospitalized, their home, and other classes in the hospit … More al. For example, the classroom in the hospital is equipped with a PC and a video phone. Also, the hospitalized people can access the Internet while lying in a bed through the PHS-LAN.Various application software was assessed in terms of such factors as operability by elementary school children in lower grades and the educational effects of such software.3. Construction of global network to support ill childrenA support network for ill children was constructed; eight classes in the hospital and two schools for handicapped children in Nagano Prefecture, Japan participated in the network. Eight of these institutes are linked with each other over the network and several exchanges including E-mail exchange (using a mailing list) were started. For example, the children use the network to introduce themselves, describe how they came to be hospitalized, and show their works produced at classes to each other by sending E-mail and pictures taken by a digital camera. This network also helps the teachers to exchange information. Less