AIDS Behav

Mobile health (mHealth) technology can be a valuable tool in the management of chronic illnesses, including HIV. Qualitative research methods were used to identify the desired content and features of a mobile app for meeting and improving the healthcare needs of persons living with HIV (PLWH). We conducted six focus group sessions with 50 English-or Spanish-speaking PLWH in New York City. To inform data analysis and to illustrate how mHealth technology can be used as a persuasive strategy for improving the health of PLWH, we integrated Fogg's functional role triad for computing technology model with the self-determination theory to illustrate how mHealth technology can be used as a persuasive strategy for improving the health of PLWH. Participants suggested several tools for meeting their healthcare needs, including: reminders/alerts, lab results tracking, and notes on health status. mHealth technology can function as a social actor by providing chat boxes/forums, testimonials of lived experiences, and personal outreach. Examples of media that can be used as a persuasive technology include games/virtual rewards, coding of health tasks, and simulations on how to connect with PLWH. Findings from these focus groups can be used to design a mobile app for PLWH\uc2\ua0that is targeted to meet their healthcare needs.1U01PS00371501/PS/NCHHSTP CDC HHS/United StatesK12 RR017648/RR/NCRR NIH HHS/United States2016-06-01T00:00:00Z25572830PMC449793

Future Trends of Virtual, Augmented Reality, and Games for Health

Serious game is now a multi-billion dollar industry and is still growing steadily in many sectors. As a major subset of serious games, designing and developing Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), and serious games or adopting off-the-shelf games to support medical education, rehabilitation, or promote health has become a promising frontier in the healthcare sector since 2004, because games technology is inexpensive, widely available, fun and entertaining for people of all ages, with various health conditions and different sensory, motor, and cognitive capabilities. In this chapter, we provide the reader an overview of the book with a perspective of future trends of VR, AR simulation and serious games for healthcare

Trends in virtual reality technologies for the learning patient

NextMed convened the Medicine Meets Virtual Reality 22 (MMVR 22) conference in 2016. Since 1992, the conference has brought together a diverse group of researchers to share creative solutions for the evolving challenge of integrating virtual reality tools into medical education. Virtual reality (VR) and its enabling technologies utilize hardware and software to simulate environments and encounters where users can interact and learn. The MMVR 22 symposium proceedings contain projects that support a variety of learners: medical students, practitioners, soldiers, and patients. This report will contemplate the trends in virtual reality technologies for patients navigating their medical and healthcare learning. The learning patient seeks more than intervention; they seek prevention. From virtual humans and environments to motion sensors and haptic devices, patients are surrounded by increasingly rich and transformative data-driven tools. Applied data enables VR applications to simulate experience, predict health outcomes, and motivate new behavior. The MMVR 22 presents investigations into the usability of wearable devices, the efficacy of avatar inclusion, and the viability of multi-player gaming. With increasing need for individualized and scalable programming, only committed open source efforts will align instructional designers, technology integrators, trainers, and clinicians. Curriculum and InstructionCurriculum and Instructio

Health literacy practices in social virtual worlds and the influence on health behaviour

This study explored how health information accessed via a 3D social virtual world and the representation of ‘self’ through the use of an avatar impact physical world health behaviour. In-depth interviews were conducted in a sample of 25 people, across 10 countries, who accessed health information in a virtual world (VW): 12 females and 13 males. Interviews were audio-recorded via private in-world voice chat or via private instant message. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the data. The social skills and practices evidenced demonstrate how the collective knowledge and skills of communities in VWs can influence improvements in individual and community health literacy through a distributed model. The findings offer support for moving away from the idea of health literacy as a set of skills which reside within an individual to a sociocultural model of health literacy. Social VWs can offer a place where people can access health information in multiple formats through the use of an avatar, which can influence changes in behaviour in the physical world and the VW. This can lead to an improvement in social skills and health literacy practices and represents a social model of health literacy

Game Changer: Investing in Digital Play to Advance Children's Learning and Health

Based on a literature review and interviews with digital learning experts, explores how digital games can foster skills and knowledge for better academic performance and health. Makes recommendations for government research, partnerships, and media

Gamification for Health and Wellbeing : A Systematic Review of the Literature

Background: Compared to traditional persuasive technology and health games, gamification is posited to offer several advantages for motivating behaviour change for health and well-being, and increasingly used. Yet little is known about its effectiveness. Aims: We aimed to assess the amount and quality of empirical support for the advantages and effectiveness of gamification applied to health and well-being. Methods: We identified seven potential advantages of gamification from existing research and conducted a systematic literature review of empirical studies on gamification for health and well-being, assessing quality of evidence, effect type, and application domain. Results: We identified 19 papers that report empirical evidence on the effect of gamification on health and well-being. 59% reported positive, 41% mixed effects, with mostly moderate or lower quality of evidence provided. Results were clear for health-related behaviors, but mixed for cognitive outcomes. Conclusions: The current state of evidence supports that gamification can have a positive impact in health and wellbeing, particularly for health behaviors. However several studies report mixed or neutral effect. Findings need to be interpreted with caution due to the relatively small number of studies and methodological limitations present in many studies (e.g., a lack of comparison of gamified interventions to non-gamified versions of the intervention)

Eureka: Identifying What It Means to Practice Student- Centered Teaching in a Hypermodern Age

Contemporary professional reports and research suggest that in corporate communication and related programs, we are not creating environments for modern students to thrive nor are we meeting the industry’s expectations in a ‘hypermodern’ world. Using personal ethnography, this article to analyzes industry-articulated limitations in the knowledge and skill sets of new communication practitioners, reviews contemporary literature identifying the learning needs of today’s students, and proposes a set of best practices based on the literature and the author’s own journey as a higher education practitioner of 20 years. Best practices identified incorporate elements of entertainment, engagement, and an ‘open-world’ approach that places the student experience at the core of each class and overall course design