Augmented Reality and Sensory Technology for Treatment of Anxiety Disorders

This solution aims at promoting well-being through Augmented Reality (AR) Sensing Based Technology, by developing a predictive system for treatment of specific phobias. Treatment of such mental disorders involves exposure therapy, which is usually conducted on a gradual and systematic basis, allowing modifications in the therapeutic setting with different exposure sessions. To meet these conditions, the therapist needs to evaluate the patient's responses in the previous sessions to define the content of the subsequent sessions. Therefore, we intend to use the psycho-physiological responses from the participants during the sessions through peripheral (i.e. ECG, EDA, EMG) and central nervous system responses (i.e. EEG) associated with emotional expression, as well as the participatory input to a visual analog scale (i.e. tactile feedback input system, avoiding huge hands movements and interruptions during carrying session) as an indicator of the subjective experience of emotions during the session (i.e. figures with different moods). This data will be also used to define the contents of each session, through a decision algorithm based on the history of the previous sessions for the same individual. All data resulting from this application will be recorded in a database to create individual reports on the session outcomes. The hardware to be used for psycho-physiological recording will be the Bitalino system (Plux) and the software for the AR development the NyARToolkit and Unity 3D software. We plan to carry out a pilot study with data collection in the laboratory setting to test the module related to the integration of psycho-physiological and participatory data in the AR system.