Immersive Mental Health

The Immersive Mental Health project is carried out by researchers of the Centre of Expertise Care and Well-being (research group Mobilab & Care and the research group People and Well-being) with the support of the Flemish Agency for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (Tetra program). During the project we work closely together with healthcare organizations and technology companies. Together we want to improve the mental well-being of care recipients and caregivers by using immersive technologies, such as virtual reality, and wearable technologies (wearables) to measure heart rate, breathing and other biofeedback during their experience.

Immersive technology includes any form of technology that extends reality or creates a new reality, e.g. virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), 360° video, mixed reality (MR) and immersive room or cave VR. These technologies provide a sense of immersion in an artificial environment that replaces or adapts the real environment, so that users become immersed in the newly created environment. In this project we focus on VR and 360° video experienced through VR goggles (headset).

Stress is an ever-increasing challenge in our society. The health and well-being sector has long struggled with this, and the covid-19 pandemic only compounded this problem. Yet there is currently insufficient knowledge among companies and healthcare institutions about combining both technologies, and this research, together with those companies, will change that.

How could such an immersive application be used in practice?

Alex unexpectedly ends up in the hospital and has to stay there for an extended period of time. That stay begins to weigh on him after a while, and Alex is introduced to a virtual reality (VR) relaxation program. As a result, Alex sees a virtual world that responds to breathing and can be away from the hospital for a while. This brings peace of mind and restores courage to persevere. Moreover, this hospital also deploys the VR relaxation program with its employees. It is good for their well-being because they can escape the work pressure for a while. Once home, Alex can still count on the relaxation program, this time a low-threshold version with a simple headset and his own smartphone. This way, Alex can briefly duck into that other world at difficult moments.