5 minute read
SPOTLIGHT ON RESEARCH
SPOTLIGHT ON RESEARCH
Technologies for mental health: recent developments at Strathclyde
Advertisement
Mario A Parra and Graham Wilson
There are growing expectations regarding the benefits that modern technologies can bring to support people affected by mental health diseases, particularly those posing significant health and social challenges such as dementias. They cause progressive loss of cognitive and functional abilities, gradually limiting the capacity of those affected to live independently. The UK government has set strategies to address these challenges, envisaging that novel technologies can enable affected individuals to stay at home safely, prolonging quality of life and delaying institutionalization. Examples of such technologies are those that rely on Virtual or Augmented Reality (VR/AR). The UK Dementia Research Institute (UK-DRI)’s Programme for Care & Technology is aiming at “… Researching, developing and applying new technologies and engineering principles with a view to understanding and promoting new models of care, assessing capacity and progression, monitoring and managing behaviours and symptoms...” The Technology Charter of the Scottish National Dementia Strategy states that “… it will ensure that everyone with a diagnosis of dementia and those who care for them are aware of, and have access to, a range of proven technologies to enable people living with dementia to live safely and independently...”. The Strategic Themes of the University of Strathclyde align well with these national and global priorities. The Lifelong Health & Wellbeing theme’s vision is that “… Good health and wellbeing requires a multidisciplinary consideration of whole systems, from the biological cell to individual and societal health and wellbeing, examining social, physical and mental health…”
To provide for these social needs, we at the University of Strathclyde have launched an interdisciplinary team that brings together researchers from Psychological Sciences and Health (Applied Cognition Lab) and Computer and Information Sciences (Digital Health and Wellness Group). The activities undertaken by the interdisciplinary team to date have given us some lessons worth highlighting. First, the impact that institutional initiatives aimed at creating spaces to promote interdisciplinary dialogues can make. Second, the role of such dialogues to map institutional strengths and capabilities to meet social needs. Third, the relevance of engaging wider audiences to ensure new technological developments will meet the needs and expectations of stakeholders.
On the 12th September 2018, a Working Group set up to promote research in areas aligned to the University Strategic Themes organised a workshop that focused on Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality (VR/AR). The workshop aimed to identify researchers/academics that share an interest in applications of VR/AR from across all faculties, and to bring this community together, to discuss how different disciplines could utilise VR/ AR equipment and facilities at the University. It was envisaged that such knowledge and shared interests would provide an appealing environment to encourage new collaborations and support the next generation of competitive grant proposals.
Figure 1. University of Strathclyde Strategic Themes’ VR/AR Workshop (Wednesday 12th September 2018). Through two Breakout Sessions, applications of VR/AR to Architecture, Rehabilitation, Digital Health, Manufacturing, Dementia, Underwater Environments, and Digital Health, were discussed.
The potential hosted by the University of Strathclyde to undertake world-leading research in this field and provide solutions that can address emergent social needs became apparent during the various discussions held on the day. Two areas worth highlighting which are relevant to this article are Dementia and Digital Health. Dr Mario A Parra from the former and Dr Graham Wilson from the latter discovered a significant overlap of their research interests after a presentation on the use of VR for health and wellbeing from Dr Wilson, which led to follow up discussions and the establishment of an interdisciplinary team. The new initiative received support from the respective schools through which a new VR facility was set up. This quickly attracted interests from staff and students and has become a space to generate research proposals, train and teach researchers and students.
Figure 2. The new VR facility hosted by the Applied Cognition Lab at Psychology, School of Psychological Sciences and Health. The new lab currently focuses on characterising challenges posed by VR tasks and environments, optimal interfaces for visualization and interaction, and personalisation of VR applications. It aims to deliver VR tools that can help enhance memory and thinking abilities, restore functional capacity and promote independent living.
Training the new generation of professionals is a task of utmost priority, to equip them with knowledge and skills necessary to handle technological solutions that can help tackle mental health problems in social contexts. It will be when such a workforce is available, that strategies towards the implementation of such developments at the level expected by government agencies would become potentially feasible. Our collaborative VR lab and multidisciplinary expertise will equip students with the necessary breadth of technological and applied practical knowledge.
Mapping interdisciplinary dialogues to social needs
We have recently discussed why and how these new technological developments can provide solutions to address health and social care needs in rapidly ageing societies. These discussions have focused on strategies to characterise and overcome challenges posed by VR tools to individuals experiencing mental health problems. Initial work has focused on enhancing meaningfulness during VR interactions. First, we are developing tools that can detect the changing abilities of those affected and use such knowledge to regulate and guide VR interactions. By asking people to carry out realistic and meaningful tasks in familiar virtual environments, we can see if and how they struggle. Such adaptive capabilities will promote treatment compliance, restore functional abilities, and maintain competences needed to sustain independent living. Second, the adaptive capabilities of our VR tools expand to the environment whereby interfaces for visualization (immersive, non-immersive), interaction (joystick, mouse), and stimulation (content of VR scenarios) can be adjusted to match preferences and meet needs of affected individuals. Meaningfulness achieved through these features will allow tailoring VR solutions to deliver person-centred interventions which will allow transferring trained skills to everyday life settings, with the ultimate aim of allowing people to live well at home for longer. We have recently interacted with the general public, asking them to use and give their opinions on our new VR tools. The experiences gathered during these interactions are discussed in the next section.
