NOVA Laboratory for Computer Science and Informatics

Funder

Organizational Unit

Publications

Efficacy of adaptive cognitive training through desktop virtual reality and paper-and-pencil in the treatment of mental and behavioral disorders

Publication . Câmara, Joana; Ferreira, Rute; Teixeira, Liliana; Nóbrega, Joana; Romeira, Carina; Bermúdez i Badia, Sergi; Faria, Ana Lúcia

Cognitive defcits are a core feature of mental and behavioral disorders, leading to poor treatment adherence and functional ity. Virtual reality (VR) methodologies are promising solutions for cognitive interventions in psychiatry once they provide greater ecological validity. This study assessed and compared two content-equivalent cognitive training (CT) interventions, delivered in desktop VR (Reh@City v2.0) and paper-and-pencil (Task Generator (TG)) formats, in patients with mental and behavioral disorders. 30 patients were randomly assigned to the Reh@City v2.0 group and the TG group. Both groups of patients underwent a time-matched 24-sessions intervention. Neuropsychological assessments were performed at baseline, post-intervention, and follow-up. A within-groups analysis revealed signifcant improvements in visual memory and depres sive symptomatology after the Reh@City intervention. The TG group improved in processing speed, verbal memory, and quality of life (social relationships and environmental domains). Between groups, Reh@City led to a greater reduction in depressive symptomatology, whereas the TG group showed higher improvements in social relationships aspects of quality of life. At follow-up, previous gains were maintained and new improvements found in the Reh@City (global cognitive func tion, language, visuospatial and executive functions) and the TG groups (attention). The Reh@City signifcantly reduced depressive symptomatology, and the TG led to greater improvements in processing speed, abstraction, and social relationships domain of quality of life at follow-up. Both interventions were associated with important cognitive, emotional, and quality of life benefts, which were maintained after two months. Reh@City and TG should be considered as complementary CT methods for patients with mental and behavioral disorders. Trial registration The trial is registered at ClinicalTrials.gov, number NCT04291586.

2021Journal article

Open access

Diving into a decade of games for health research: a systematic review

Publication . Silva, Paula Alexandra; Bermúdez i Badia, Sergi; Cameirão, Mónica S.

Recent years have been characterised by a rising interest in using enter tainment computing to monitor, maintain, and improve human health. This is observed in many systems and applications that leverage the benefits of a playful and enjoyable experience to provide a technology-enabled health intervention. This paper reviews one decade of papers (679) published at the intersection of health, entertainment and technology to determine trends, studies’ characteristics, type of solutions, domains of application and study purposes. Results show that there is a growing body of research in the area, with the majority of studies provid ing solutions for rehabilitation and addressing motor conditions related to stroke and/or fitness. Where half of the solutions reported are custom made, the bulk of those studies is performed with the purpose of evaluating the solutions pro posed or validating their efficacy. In 80% of the cases, the studies are performed with subjects from the target population with sample sizes that have been steadily increasing over the years.

2021Conference object

Open access

Evaluation of a low-cost virtual reality surround-screen projection system

Publication . Gonçalves, Afonso; Borrego, Adrián; Latorre, Jorge; Llorens, Roberto; Bermúdez i Badia, Sergi

Two of the most popular mediums for virtual reality are head-mounted displays and surround-screen projection systems, such as CAVE Automatic Virtual Environments. In recent years, HMDs suffered a significant reduction in cost and have become widespread consumer products. In contrast, CAVEs are still expensive and remain accessible to a limited number of researchers. This study aims to evaluate both objective and subjective characteristics of a CAVE-like monoscopic low-cost virtual reality surround-screen projection system compared to advanced setups and HMDs. For objective results, we measured the head position estimation accuracy and precision of a low-cost active infrared (IR) based tracking system, used in the proposed low-cost CAVE, relatively to an infrared marker-based tracking system, used in a laboratory-grade CAVE system. For subjective characteristics, we investigated the sense of presence and cybersickness elicited in users during a visual search task outside personal space, beyond arms reach, where the importance of stereo vision is diminished. Thirty participants rated their sense of presence and cybersickness after performing the VR search task with our CAVE-like system and a modern HMD. The tracking showed an accuracy error of 1.66 cm and .4 mm of precision jitter. The system was reported to elicit presence but at a lower level than the HMD, while causing significant lower cybersickness. Our results were compared to a previous study performed with a laboratory-grade CAVE and support that a VR system implemented with low-cost devices could be a viable alternative to laboratory-grade CAVEs for visual search tasks outside the user’s personal space.

2021Journal article

Open access

Finding the optimal time window for increased classification accuracy during motor imagery

Publication . Blanco-Mora, D. A.; Aldridge, A.; Jorge, C.; Vourvopoulos, A.; Figueiredo, P.; Bermúdez i Badia, S.

Motor imagery classification using electroencephalography is based on feature extraction over a length of time, and different configurations of settings can alter the performance of a classifier. Nevertheless, there is a lack of standardized settings for motor imagery classification. This work analyzes the effect of age on motor imagery training performance for two common spatial pattern-based classifier pipelines and various configurations of timing parameters, such as epochs, windows, and offsets. Results showed significant (p ≤ 0.01) inverse correlations between performance and feature quantity, as well as between performance and epoch/window ratio.

2021Conference object

Open access

AI-Rehab: a framework for AI driven neurorehabilitation training - the profiling challenge

Publication . Fermé, Eduardo; Bermúdez i Badia, Sergi; Sirsat, Manisha; Almeida, Yuri

One of the health clinic challenges is rehabilitation therapy cognitive impairment that can happen after brain injury, dementia and in normal cognitive decline due to aging. Current cognitive rehabilitation therapy has been shown to be the most effective way to address this problem. However, a) it is not adaptive for every patient, b) it has a high cost, and c) it is usually implemented in clinical environments. The Task Generator (TG) is a free tool for the generation of cognitive training tasks. However, TG is not designed to adapt and monitor the cognitive progress of the patient. Hence, we propose in the BRaNT project an enhancement of TG with belief revision and machine learning techniques, gamification and remote monitoring capabilities to enable health professionals to provide a long-term personalized cognitive rehabilitation therapy at home. The BRaNT is an interdisciplinary effort that addresses scientific limitations of current practices as well as provides solutions towards the sustainability of health systems and contributes towards the improvement of quality of life of patients. This paper proposes the AI-Rehab framework for the BRaNT, explains profiling challenge in the situation of insufficient data and presents an alternate AI solutions which might be applicable once enough data is available.

2020Conference object

Open access