Defining personalized therapies for handheld devices

ABSTRACT

This paper presents a framework that provides psychotherapists with means to tailor specific therapies for their patients. Used artifacts can be easily adapted to the patient's problem, to his evolution rhythm, therapy stage or even to possible filling in situations. Furthermore, the artifacts can be configured to proactively adapt to the patient's behavior, according to previously defined rules, extending the therapist's motivating role. The framework ranges from desktop computers, to mobile devices (e.g. PDAs and TabletPCs) covering therapeutic tasks for both patient and therapist.

REFERENCES

• 1: L. Carriço and M. Sá. Hand-held psychotherapy artifacts. In Proceedings of the 11th Human Computer Interaction International Conference, HCII05, Las Vegas, USA, 2005.
• 2: M. Mahoney. Constructive Psychotherapy. The Guilford Press, New York, 2003.
• 3: A. Przeworski and M. G. Newman. Palmtop computer-assisted group therapy for social phobia. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 60(2):179--188, 2004.

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.5 INFORMATION INTERFACES AND PRESENTATION (I.7)
      H.5.2 User Interfaces (D.2.2, H.1.2, I.3.6)
          Subjects: Prototyping

Additional Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.5 INFORMATION INTERFACES AND PRESENTATION (I.7)
      H.5.2 User Interfaces (D.2.2, H.1.2, I.3.6)
          Subjects: User-centered design

  J. Computer Applications
  J.4 SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

General Terms:
Design, Experimentation, Human Factors

Keywords:
active applications, handheld devices, psychotherapy