VR supported self-help treatment for adolescents with psychosis

Psychosis is a severe psychological condition that affects some people, including adolescents. Unfortunately, treating psychosis and psychotic disorders takes a long time. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and CBT for treating psychosis (CBTp) promise the most effective treatment; however, it is too long, considerably affects patients’ individual lives, and involves high individual costs. Using Virtual Reality (VR) technology, behavioral experiments in CBTp can be carried out during therapy sessions by exposing the patient to simulated social scenarios that they find challenging. This CBT-supported process promises improvements in increased patients’ experiences and allows patient gains in their regular lives. This report illustrates the development based on a VR-assisted treatment protocol currently being developed and clinically tested at the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Haukeland University Hospital, Bergen, Norway, and the possibilities of a VR self-help application as a supplement to clinical sessions. Furthermore, patients will be able to perform different social-training exercises in familiar home conditions using the therapists’ defined guidelines prepared beforehand. This project application uses VR technology and speech recognition to reach this goal of self-help treatment. With the help of speech recognition, the VR application can understand what the patient is saying, provide appropriate feedback, and assure a flow in the conversation through the different scenarios. An iterative mixed method, including system usability tests and follow-up interviews with clinical domain experts, was conducted to test this application’s usability and feasibility. First testing iterations’ System Usability Scale (SUS) results were positive and indicated concrete issues for improvement. Moreover, the final testing iteration delivered excellent results, showing the possibility of using a VR-supported self-help treatment for psychosis. Psychosis is a severe psychological condition that affects some people, including adolescents. Unfortunately, treating psychosis and psychotic disorders takes a long time. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and CBT for treating psychosis (CBTp) promise the most effective treatment; however, it is too long, considerably affects patients’ individual lives, and involves high individual costs. Using Virtual Reality (VR) technology, behavioral experiments in CBTp can be carried out during therapy sessions by exposing the patient to simulated social scenarios that they find challenging. This CBT-supported process promises improvements in increased patients’ experiences and allows patient gains in their regular lives. This report illustrates the development based on a VR-assisted treatment protocol currently being developed and clinically tested at the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Haukeland University Hospital, Bergen, Norway, and the possibilities of a VR self-help application as a supplement to clinical sessions. Furthermore, patients will be able to perform different social-training exercises in familiar home conditions using the therapists’ defined guidelines prepared beforehand. This research application uses VR technology and speech recognition to reach this goal of self-help treatment. With the help of speech recognition, the VR application can understand what the patient is saying, provide appropriate feedback, and assure a flow in the conversation through the different scenarios. An iterative mixed method, including system usability tests and follow-up interviews with clinical domain experts, was conducted to test this application’s usability and feasibility. First testing iterations’ System Usability Scale (SUS) results were positive and indicated concrete issues for improvement. Moreover, the final testing iteration delivered excellent results, showing the possibility of using a VR-supported self-help treatment for psychosis.Masteroppgave i Programutvikling samarbeid med HVLPROG399MAMN-PRO

An eHealth Framework for Managing Pediatric Growth Disorders and Growth Hormone Therapy

Background: The use of technology to support health and health care has grown rapidly in the last decade across all ages and medical specialties. Newly developed eHealth tools are being implemented in long-term management of growth failure in children, a low prevalence pediatric endocrine disorder. Objective: Our objective was to create a framework that can guide future implementation and research on the use of eHealth tools to support patients with growth disorders who require growth hormone therapy. Methods: A total of 12 pediatric endocrinologists with experience in eHealth, from a wide geographical distribution, participated in a series of online discussions. We summarized the discussions of 3 workshops, conducted during 2020, on the use of eHealth in the management of growth disorders, which were structured to provide insights on existing challenges, opportunities, and solutions for the implementation of eHealth tools across the patient journey, from referral to the end of pediatric therapy. Results: A total of 815 responses were collected from 2 questionnaire-based activities covering referral and diagnosis of growth disorders, and subsequent growth hormone therapy stages of the patient pathway, relating to physicians, nurses, and patients, parents, or caregivers. We mapped the feedback from those discussions into a framework that we developed as a guide to integration of eHealth tools across the patient journey. Responses focused on improved clinical management, such as growth monitoring and automation of referral for early detection of growth disorders, which could trigger rapid evaluation and diagnosis. Patient support included the use of eHealth for enhanced patient and caregiver communication, better access to educational opportunities, and enhanced medical and psychological support during growth hormone therapy management. Given the potential availability of patient data from connected devices, artificial intelligence can be used to predict adherence and personalize patient support. Providing evidence to demonstrate the value and utility of eHealth tools will ensure that these tools are widely accepted, trusted, and used in clinical practice, but implementation issues (eg, adaptation to specific clinical settings) must be addressed. Conclusions: The use of eHealth in growth hormone therapy has major potential to improve the management of growth disorders along the patient journey. Combining objective clinical information and patient adherence data is vital in supporting decision-making and the development of new eHealth tools. Involvement of clinicians and patients in the process of integrating such technologies into clinical practice is essential for implementation and developing evidence that eHealth tools can provide value across the patient pathway.Peer reviewe

Making the MUVE to virtual education

Second Life, a 3D multi-user virtual environment (MUVE), is becoming an increasingly popular topic at educational technology conferences and in the media these days. What’s all the fuss about

Effects of augmented reality exposure therapy combined with cognitive intervention on cat phobia

With the advancement of technology, augmented reality has started to appear as an option in exposure therapies. This article aims to examine the effect of ARET (augmented reality exposure therapy) in combination with cognitive intervention on cat phobia and to evaluate the clients' experiences with ARET. The study was conducted with explanatory sequential design with four participants (all women). The quantitative part of the study was conducted as a single case study. Participants were then interviewed to assess their experiences during and after ARET. Our findings suggest that ARET, used in combination with cognitive intervention, is effective in reducing cat phobia, with the exception of physical contact with a cat. ARET can also be used independently of cognitive intervention. In addition, the advantages and disadvantages of ARET assessed by the clients are also discussed. It should be ensured that ARET is widely used in therapy as an important technique that has an advantage for both clients and therapists

Visualization and visual analytics of geospatial data for psychological treatment

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Geospatial TechnologiesCurrent location-tracking solutions, along with general advances in software (e.g., development frameworks, visualization libraries) and hardware (e.g., cloud computing, mobile devices), make it increasingly easy to capture and store geospatial data to be exploited in various application areas. In this dissertation, we study the possibilities of visualization techniques and visual analytics of geospatial (user) data with the aim of helping/improving therapies in the realm of psychological health. To this aim, a web-based visualization application was created as part of a larger ecosystem of applications created by GEOTEC, including a mobile app to systematically capture user’s geospatial data (i.e., GPS coordinates), and a metrics analytical platform, which is capable of storing captured data and performing useful analysis/calculations. The visualization tool was developed to support therapists to make informed decisions pertinent to psychological illness depression interventions, by allowing them to visually inspect, compare, and analyze captured and processed data from monitored patients. Next to determining what visual elements of the visualization tool best suited the needs of the case study, a quantitative and qualitative evaluation was performed with therapists, in order to measure the resulting usefulness of the tool, find out the drawbacks for further improvement, and to generate ideas for future work and further applications in psychological health. As a result, the visualization tool was generally found to be useable (SUS score of 86.5625), useful for therapists to help during and to determine their therapy, and various useful extensions and further application areas were discovered. Based on the result, we can conclude that the tool may indeed become a beneficial mechanism for psychological intervention in real-world settings

The development and applications of serious games in the public services: defence and health

This thesis was submitted for the award of Doctor of Philosophy and was awarded by Brunel University London.The latest advances of Virtual Reality technologies and three-dimensional graphics, as well as the developments in Gaming Technologies in the recent years, have stemmed the proliferation of Serious Games in a broader spectrum of research applications. Among the most popular areas of application are public services such as Defence and Health, where digital technologies realise new challenges and opportunities for research and development of Serious Games and for a variety of contexts. As with all games, the user engagement is elevated and apart from the entertaining aspect, Serious Games serve as a novel and promising alternative experience to knowledge transfer. Furthermore, Serious Games bring to the end user and the overall society a series of attractive benefits. These benefits include safety, cost-effectiveness, increased motivation and personalisation. Hence, this Thesis aims to investigate novel approaches of developing Serious Games that utilise the recent advances of Virtual Reality and Gaming Technology and facilitate the aforementioned benefits. The process of design and development of the novel tools and applications follow an iterative manner and are driven by the review of the available literature as well as end-user feedbackEPSRC (Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council ) , MOD (UK), NHS (UK

eHealth in Chronic Diseases

This book provides a review of the management of chronic diseases (evaluation and treatment) through eHealth. Studies that examine how eHealth can help to prevent, evaluate, or treat chronic diseases and their outcomes are included

Live Performance as a Cinematic Experience Within a College Program

This paper analyzes six elements of cinematic language (color and lighting, dialogue, timing, sound, performance, and mise-en-scéne) and considers how each can be effectively utilized in live commercial music performances, particularly within a college music program. By learning the science behind color choices and how they affect performance, perception, and mood, student artists and ensemble directors can make more intentional choices with costuming, staging, and lighting to heighten emotional responses from the audience. A thorough discussion of how filmmakers use each of these elements to trigger psychophysiological reactions along with examples of how they can be applied to live performance provides powerful and practical teaching tools for directors and valuable experiences for the student artists. The live cinematic experience is explained as an event in which the audience feels collective emotions and a strong sense of community. Implementing the concepts of cinematic language as shown in this paper creates an experience in which a college music program is appealing as a viable option for students pursuing a music career outside of academia, the students learn marketable skills, and their audiences are granted powerful and memorable experiences