Design and Preliminary Evaluation of the AID Vest: An Automatic Inflatable Wearable Device for Anxiety Reduction

Deep pressure therapy (DPT) has been widely applied as a form of anxiety relief in children and adults, commonly through the use of heavy weighted vests and blankets. Past work shows that manually-inflated vests can have a similar calming effect on the user. However, current DPT methods present challenges in portability and timely application. In this paper, we propose and design an automatic inflatable vest with the potential for improved convenience compared to past DPT solutions. Preliminary results show that our proposed methods for measuring and inducing anxiety in a future empirical study of the vest are viable, and that the vest may reduce anxiety more than a control (no device) condition. This work can benefit other researchers who are interested in anxiety management, wearable haptic devices, and soft robotics applications.