A concept, built on Mawell S7 platform, providing tools to empower people to better management of stress and even mild depression, has been reported in IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology annual conference in Minneapolis, MN, USA, on 3rd September, 2009. The concept combines web-based tools, mobile technologies, and health monitoring to psychological interventions and information, helping people to better recover from stress and mild mental wellbeing related problems. Early evaluation results report high usability and acceptance of the concept.

IEEE EMBS is the largest biomedical engineering society in the world, with more than 8000 members. Its annual conference attracts more than 2000 participants. The concept was presented in an invited session for Personal Health Systems, which reported results from flagship Personal Health System projects in Europe and Australia.

The concept has been developed by a large consortium, including VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, University of Jyväskylä, Mawell, Nokia, Suunto, Firstbeat Technologies, Vivago, Varma, Mehiläinen, Solaris, and JTO School of Management. The work has been supported by Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation (TEKES).

Abstract

In prevention of chronic diseases, health promotion and early interventions based on self-management should be emphasized. Mental health problems and stress cause a significant portion of healthcare costs, and also complicate the management of other chronic conditions. In addition to physical health, psychophysiological and social wellbeing should be equally promoted. Thus, we have previously designed and reported the P4Well or Pervasive Personal and PsychoPhysiological management of WELLness concept. The concept supports the stress and recovery management on a daily basis through improved health management strategies, and combines psychological methods with personal health technologies. In this paper, we discuss the preliminary user study experiences of ongoing evaluations with two different user groups consisting of: 1) middle-aged men who are using the concept for managing their mental wellbeing or mild depression; and 2) entrepreneurs who are using the concept for coping with stress. Our results provide a preliminary assessment of the role and importance of experts, technologies, and peer-support in the concept.

You can also find the abstract from following page:  https://embs.papercept.net/conferences/scripts/abstract.pl?ConfID=9&Number=1658