[An electronic communication aid with a large keyboard for artificial respiration patients in the intensive care...

An increasing number of patients under mechanical ventilation in ICUs suffers from being cut off from normal communication. The existing communication facilities, such as letter-boards, magnetic letters, pictograms, Yes-no-signals and attempts at written communication are very often insufficient or not to be mastered by the weakened ICU respirator patient. We, therefore, present an electronic communicator consisting of a keyboard with big push-buttons and an illuminated running-letter display. Up to one page of text can be stored in memory and recalled later as running or printed text. Initial experiences with the electronic communicator show that even weakened respirator patients with diminished sensomotoric abilities successfully manage to communicate with the staff.