PeDEL - Opportunities for Technology to Facilitate Treatment for

Accepted (preprint)

Thomas Kauffman, Rebecca Moore, Jason Wiese
CHI '26: ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, April 13--17, 2026, Barcelona, ESP, CHI

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APA Click to copy
Kauffman, T., Moore, R., & Wiese, J. Opportunities for Technology to Facilitate Treatment for People with Disorders of Consciousness. In CHI '26: ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, April 13--17, 2026, Barcelona, ESP. CHI.

Chicago/Turabian Click to copy
Kauffman, Thomas, Rebecca Moore, and Jason Wiese. “Opportunities for Technology to Facilitate Treatment for People with Disorders of Consciousness.” In CHI '26: ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, April 13--17, 2026, Barcelona, ESP. CHI, n.d.

MLA Click to copy
Kauffman, Thomas, et al. “Opportunities for Technology to Facilitate Treatment for People with Disorders of Consciousness.” CHI '26: ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, April 13--17, 2026, Barcelona, ESP, CHI.

BibTeX Click to copy

@inproceedings{thomas-a,
  title = {Opportunities for Technology to Facilitate Treatment for People with Disorders of Consciousness},
  publisher = {CHI},
  author = {Kauffman, Thomas and Moore, Rebecca and Wiese, Jason},
  booktitle = {CHI '26: ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, April 13--17, 2026, Barcelona, ESP}
}

Abstract

People diagnosed with a disorder of consciousness (DoC)—a spectrum of consciousness including comatose state—typically have a negative prognosis and their treatment options are limited. We interviewed seven clinical care providers who are involved in caring for DoC patients to explore the potential for technology to facilitate treatment and care of DoC patients. The interviews revealed multiple rich opportunities in this space centered around optimizing sensory stimulation—the systematic delivery of sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and touch. Simultaneously, the interviews also revealed many ethical and technical challenges inherent in DoC patient care, including difficulty in obtaining familiar media to use in the delivery of the sensory stimulation. Our findings underscore the need for technology that complements, not replaces, the human elements of DoC care and healthcare more generally.