Using VR-based interventions, wearable technology, and text mining to improve military and Veteran mental health

Introduction: Smartphones have made promising contributions to the field of military mental health by providing novel app-based approaches to enhance training and deployment, data collection, and creating social domains for participants to share information and perform research. Methods: This article reviews four applications designed...

Leveraging technology to improve military mental health: Novel uses of smartphone apps

Introduction: Smartphones have made promising contributions to the field of military mental health by providing novel app-based approaches to enhance training and deployment, data collection, and creating social domains for participants to share information and perform research. Methods: This article reviews four applications designed...

Design and Evaluation of Personalized Motivational Messages by a Virtual Agent that Assists in Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Therapy

BACKGROUND: Systems incorporating virtual agents can play a major role in electronic-mental (e-mental) health care, as barriers to care still prevent some patients from receiving the help they need. To properly assist the users of these systems, a virtual agent needs to promote motivation. This can be done by offering motivational messages....

Generating situation-based motivational feedback in a PTSD E-health system

Motivating users is an important task for virtual agents in behaviour chance support systems. In this study we present a system which generates motivational statements based on situation type, aimed at a virtual agent for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder therapy. Using input from experts (n=13), we built a database containing what categories of...

An ontology-based question system for a virtual coach assisting in trauma recollection

Internet-based guided self-therapy systems provide a novel method for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder patients to follow therapy at home with the assistance of a virtual coach. One of the main challenges for such a coach is assisting patients with recollecting their traumatic memories, a vital part of therapy. In this paper, an ontology-based...

Lessons learned from the development of technological support for PTSD prevention: A review

This review2 describes the state-of-the-arttechnologiesthat support mental resilience training for PTSD prevention. It characterizes four current systems across training approaches; seeks insights via interviews with the systemdevelopers; and extracts from thesea set of essential guidelines for future developers. The guidelines include four...

EEG alpha asymmetry, heart rate variability and cortisol in response to virtual reality induced stress

We propose to combine Virtual Reality (VR) and bio-neuro feedback to help treat stress-related disorders. As a first step in that direction, we here attempted to induce stress through VR and identify (neuro)physiological correlates. Nine participants performed a surveillance task in two different cities within VR while EEG, ECG and cortisol...

Cognitive engineering of a military multi-modal memory restructuring system

Several methods have been proposed to treat combat veterans with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Still, a recent review reports on high drop-out and non response rates. This has motivated work in the design of a software application to support and increase the appeal of traditional face-to-face trauma-focused psychotherapy. The research...

Virtual reality exposure and neuro-bio feedback to help coping with traumatic events

Recent research shows that Virtual Reality (VR) exposure or bio-neuro feedback can help professionals to cope with possibly traumatic events. This paper presents a neuro-bio VR system that combines both methods in order to further improve the prevention and therapy of trauma-related disorders. This system can harmonize the VR exposure to user's...

Multi-modal memory restructuring for patients suffering from combat-related PTSD: A pilot study

The paper discusses the design and evaluation of a multimedia software application, which can be used in the treatment of combat-related posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The application allows patients and therapist to visualize the patients' past experience using maps, personal photos, stories and selfcreated 3D virtual worlds. The tool...