The rapid growth of the Information and Communication Technologies over the past decade changed the ways in which people communicate, relate and live. The health field is not an exception to the 21st century trends, and emerging technologies such as Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) have started to play a central role for health professionals. However, most of the current VR and AR applications have prohibitive costs and a variety of interfaces and tools. This has limited the impact and the implementation of these technologies in health settings. mSinaptiks is the first eHealth platform in integrating, under a common interface, a variety of immersive VR and AR applications for the prevention, evaluation, treatment and tracking of disabling illnesses and psychological disorders. In addition, the platform integrates apps for education and professional training. mSinaptiks allows health practitioners to benefit from affordable and easy-to-use mobile-based apps to improve the quality of life of their patients.
Over the past decade, rapid and far-reaching technological advances have significantly changed the way people communicate, relate and live. Technological devices and applications that were hardly used some years ago (or even not exist) are already part of our daily life. This is given the way to the Information and Communication Society (Bradley, 2000), characterized by an extensive use of the Internet, computers and mobile phones in almost every human activity.
The health field is not an exception to the 21st century trends, and ICTs have started to become common tools for diagnosis, prevention, therapy, education and training. In particular, emerging technologies such as Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR) and mobile devices are starting to play a central role for health professionals (Botella & Bretón-Lopez, 2014) due its potential to improve the efficacy and efficiency of traditional healthcare processes.
Recent research provides evidence on the clinical efficacy of VR and AR in the
treatment a number of anxiety disorders
That is way Sinaptiks has developed mSinaptiks, the first eHealth platform that integrates a variety of medical and health apps in a single interface. The platform allows health practitioners to use affordable and easy-to-use mobile-based apps to improve the quality of life of their patients.
Sinaptiks is the developer of mobile-based applications that uses the most emerging technologies to improve traditional healthcare processes. The company designs, creates and validates VR and AR applications for different stakeholders, including institutions, associations, practitioners and patients. The solutions developed by Sinaptiks are mainly directed to clinics, hospitals, practitioners and social and health institutions (table 1).
Medical
Founded in 2015, the company integrates a unique team composed by engineers, designers, physicians and psychologists with more than 10 years of experience in applying VR to mental health and higher education. The company has now created mSinaptiks and the first applications for the platform. Sinaptiks is a company that develops its own apps but also adapts and customizes products from selected partners (other companies and universities).
mSinaptiks is the first modular platform that integrates in a single interface different health-related apps. The platform includes a suite of mobile applications for the evaluation, prevention, treatment and/or tracking of disabling illnesses and psychological disorders (figure 1). The platform has an interface for the patient and a web access service for the practitioner (figure 2): • •
The patient: Patients have access to a variety of apps from the Smartphone, including those based in the use of immersive VR and AR technologies. In these last cases, the patient needs to slip the smartphone into a Head Mounted Display (HMD) to be immersed within 3D virtual worlds.
The practitioner: The health professional accesses to the platform from a mobile device or a desktop computer and is able to register new patients, link them to the apps contained in the platform, review each session or obtain detailed information of the patients’ activity. In the case of VR and AR applications, the interface allows the professional to see what the patients sees, adapt in real time the content of the virtual worlds according to the patients’ needs, create graphs, take notes and other features.
Practitioners can use the platform during face-to-face sessions but can also use it remotely. Despite this, note that all applications need the direct supervision of a practitioner. In a wider sense mSinaptiks allows for a regular and constant connection between the practitioner and the patient.
The first applications of mSinaptiks are mainly focused in mental health evaluation and treatment: •
three VR environments that represent the most common situations related to public speaking: an auditorium (figure 3), a meeting room and a classroom. The users can practice oratory skills and confront their fears in a systematic and controlled way. • ADHD assessment. A VR screening tool developed to evaluate the effects of pharmacological and/or psychological interventions for ADHD (figure 4). The app contains a virtual classroom and uses a HMD and a head tracking system. Within the virtual scenario, children are assessed for performance in visual or audio attention tasks while a series of typical classrooms distracters appear. As a result of each session, the system provides information about the attention performance and the behavior of the child. Coping with anxiety and pain. Immersive VR experience designed as a method for distracting patients during highly painful and/or stressful situations (figure 4). The user will visit a pleasant tropical island that contains a variety of captivating situations: a Japanese garden, a waterfall, a dam, an ancient tree, etc. This tool can be used in a variety of contexts: dental clinics, pain and surgery units, health centers or in patients with anxiety or stress.
Behavioral self-reports. This application allows to design and manage cognitive-behavioral self-reports that patients can fill out through the Smartphone in their daily live (figure 5). Unlike traditional paper-and-pencil self-reports, the practitioner can incorporate multimedia elements (such as pictures or audio notes) and reminders. Bradley, G. (2000). The information and communication society: how people will live and work in the new millennium. Ergonomics, 43(7), 844-857.
Botella, C. & Bretón-López, J. (2014). The use of information and communication technologies in clinical psychology. Revista de Psicopatología y Psicología Clínica, 19(3), 149-156.
Garcia-Palacios, A., Herrero, R., Vizcaíno, Y., Belmonte, M.A., Castilla, D., Molinari, G., Baños, R.M. & Botella, C. (2015). Integrating virtual reality with activity management for the treatment of fibromyalgia: Acceptability and preliminary efficacy. The Clinical Journal of Pain, 31(6), 564-572.
Gerardi, M., Cukor, J., Difede, J., Rizzo, A. & Rothbaum, B. O. (2010). Virtual reality exposure therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder and other anxiety disorders. Current Psychiatry Reports, 12, 298–305.
Hone-Blanchet, A.,Wensing, T. & Fecteau, S. (2014). The use of virtual reality in craving assessment and cue-exposure therapy in substance use disorders. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 8:884. Meyerbroker, K. & Emmelkamp, P. M. (2010). Virtual reality exposure therapy in anxiety disorders: A systematic review of process-and-outcome studies. Depression and Anxiety, 27, 933–944.
Opris, D., Pintea, S., García-Palacios, A., Botella, C., Szamosközi, S. & David, D. (2012). Virtual reality exposure therapy in anxiety disorders: a quantitative metaanalysis. Depression and Anxiety, 29(2), 85-93.
Parsons, T. D. & Rizzo, A. A. (2008). Affective outcomes of virtual reality exposure therapy for anxiety and specific phobias: A meta-analysis. Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 39, 250 –261. Riva, G., Bacchetta, M., Baruffi, M. & Molinari, E. (2002). Virtual-reality-based multidimensional therapy for the treatment of body image disturbances in binge eating disorders: A preliminary controlled study. IEEE Transactions on Information Technology in Biomedicine, 6, 224–234.
Riva, G., Manzoni, M., Villani, D., Gaggioli, A. & Molinari, E. (2008). Why you really eat? Virtual reality in the treatment of obese emotional eaters. Studies in Health Technology and Informatics, 132, 417–419.