Aneesha Singh

Motivating people with chronic pain to do physical activity: opportunities for technology design

Physical activity is important for improving quality of life in people with chronic pain. However, actual or anticipated pain exacerbation, and lack of confidence when doing physical activity, make it difficult to maintain and build towards long-term activity goals. Research guiding the design of interactive technology to motivate and support physical activity in people with chronic pain is lacking. We conducted studies with: (1) people with chronic pain, to understand how they maintained and increased physical activity in daily life and what factors deterred them; and (2) pain-specialist physiotherapists, to understand how they supported people with chronic pain. Building on this understanding, we investigated the use of auditory feedback to address some of the psychological barriers and needs identified and to increase self-efficacy, motivation and confidence in physical activity. We conclude by discussing further design opportunities based on the overall findings.

Go-with-the-Flow: Tracking, Analysis and Sonification of Movement and Breathing to Build Confidence in Activity Despite Chronic Pain

Chronic (persistent) pain (CP) affects 1 in 10 adults; clinical resources are insufficient, and anxiety about activity restricts lives. Technological aids monitor activity but lack necessary psychological support. This article proposes a new sonification framework, Go-with-the-Flow, informed by physiotherapists and people with CP. The framework proposes articulation of user-defined sonified exercise spaces (SESs) tailored to psychological needs and physical capabilities that enhance body and movement awareness to rebuild confidence in physical activity. A smartphone-based wearable device and a Kinect-based device were designed based on the framework to track movement and breathing and sonify them during physical activity. In control studies conducted to evaluate the sonification strategies, people with CP reported increased performance, motivation, awareness of movement, and relaxation with sound feedback. Home studies, a focus group, and a survey of CP patients conducted at the end of a hospital pain management session provided an in-depth understanding of how different aspects of the SESs and their calibration can facilitate self-directed rehabilitation and how the wearable version of the device can facilitate transfer of gains from exercise to feared or demanding activities in real life. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings on the design of technology for physical rehabilitation.

Getting RID of pain-related behaviour to improve social and self perception: A technology-based perspective

People with chronic musculoskeletal pain can experience pain-related fear of physical activity and low confidence in their own motor capabilities. These pain-related emotions and thoughts are often communicated through communicative and protective non-verbal behaviours. Studies in clinical psychology have shown that protective behaviours affect well-being not only physically and psychologically, but also socially. These behaviours appear to be used by others to appraise not just a persons physical state but also to make inferences about their personality traits, with protective pain-related behaviour more negatively evaluated than the communicative behaviour. Unfortunately, people with chronic pain may have difficulty in controlling the triggers of protective behaviour and often are not even aware they exhibit such behaviour. New sensing technology capable of detecting such behaviour or its triggers could be used to support rehabilitation in this regard. In this paper we briefly discuss the above issues and present our approach in developing a rehabilitation system.

User needs for technology supporting physical activity in chronic pain

An emerging field of HCI is the use of interactive technology to promote fitness. However, current persuasive fitness technologies for the general population do not address the psychological needs of users with chronic conditions. This is particularly the case in chronic pain. Research indicates that people with chronic pain have negative beliefs and experiences associated with pain such as anxiety about provoking pain through exercise. We interviewed physiotherapists and people with chronic pain to get an understanding of the physical and psychological needs that must be addressed by a technology for supporting physical activity in this population. Five themes emerged: pain management approach, personalisation/tailoring, exercise adherence, supportive functions, and visual representations.

Mind the Gap: A SIG on Bridging the Gap in Research on Body Sensing, Body Perception and Multisensory Feedback

Peoples perceptions of their own bodys appearance, capabilities and position are constantly updated through sensory cues [10,14] that are naturally produced by their actions. Increasingly cheap and ubiquitous sensing technology is being used with multisensory feedback in multiple HCI areas of sports, health, rehabilitation, psychology, neuroscience, arts and games to alter or en-hance sensory cues to achieve many ends such as enhanced body perception and body awareness. However, the focus and aims differ between areas. Designing more effective and efficient multisensory feedback re-quires an attempt to bridge the gap between these worlds. This interactive SIG with minute madness technology presentations, expert sessions, and multidisciplinary discussions will: (i) bring together HCI researchers from different areas, (ii) discuss tools, methods and frameworks, and (iii) form a multidisciplinary community to build synergies for further collaboration.

Are HIV Smartphone Apps and Online Interventions Fit for Purpose

Sexual health is an under-explored area of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), particularly sexually transmitted infections such as HIV. Due to the stigma associated with these infections, people are often motivated to seek information online. With the rise of smartphone and web apps, there is enormous potential for technology to provide easily accessible information and resources. However, using online information raises important concerns about the trustworthiness of these resources and whether they are fit for purpose. We conducted a review of smartphone and web apps to investigate the landscape of currently available online apps and whether they meet the diverse needs of people seeking information on HIV online. Our functionality review revealed that existing technology interventions have a one-size-fits-all approach and do not support the breadth and complexity of HIV-related support needs. We argue that technology-based interventions need to signpost their offering and provide tailored support for different stages of HIV, including prevention, testing, diagnosis and management.

Designing a gesture-sound wearable system to motivate physical activity by altering body perception

People, through their bodily actions, engage in sensorimotor loops that connect them to the world and to their own bodies. Peoples brains integrate the incoming sensory information to form mental representations of their body appearance and capabilities. Technology provides exceptional opportunities to tweak sensorimotor loops and provide people with different experiences of their bodies. We recently showed that real-time sound feedback on ones movement (sonic avatar) can be used for sensory alteration of peoples body perception, and in turn provoke enhanced motor behaviour, confidence and motivation for physical activity (PA) in people while increasing their positive emotions towards their own bodies. Here we describe the design process of a wearable prototype that aims to investigate how we can overcome known body-perception-related psychological barriers to PA by employing action-sound loops. The prototype consists of sensors that capture peoples bodily actions and a gesture-sound palette that allows different action-sound mappings. Grounded in neuroscientific, clinical and sports psychology studies on body perception and PA, the ultimate design aim is to enhance PA in inactive populations by provoking changes on their bodily experience.

Giving up Control - A Speculative Air Pollution Mask to Reflect on Autonomy and Technology Design

In many metropolitan cities air pollution regularly exceeds safe levels, with numerous consequences for health and well-being. Current technological solutions often aim to give users control over their air pollution exposure by measuring, processing and sharing data about pollutant levels. We created a speculative face mask that opens and closes autonomously, taking control away from the user. The goal of the speculative design was to highlight the urgency and effect of air pollution on individuals in a tangible and embodied way. Through this critical design object, we question existing solutionist approaches to air pollution and pose questions about autonomy and individual responsibility. In this paper, we share our development process and the conceptual idea behind the mask to inform and inspire other critical objects to address important societal issues at an individual level.

Seven lessons for interdisciplinary research on interactive digital health interventions

Research and development for interactive digital health interventions requires multi-disciplinary expertise in identifying user needs, and developing and evaluating each intervention. Two of the central areas of expertise required are Health (broadly defined) and Human–Computer Interaction. Although these share some research methods and values, they traditionally have deep differences that can catch people unawares, and make interdisciplinary collaborations challenging, resulting in sub-optimal project outcomes. The most widely discussed is the contrast between formative evaluation (emphasised in Human–Computer Interaction) and summative evaluation (emphasised in Health research). However, the differences extend well beyond this, from the nature of accepted evidence to the culture of reporting. In this paper, we present and discuss seven lessons that we have learned about the contrasting cultures, values, assumptions and practices of Health and Human–Computer Interaction. The lessons are structured according to a research lifecycle, from establishing the state of the art for a given digital intervention, moving through the various (iterative) stages of development, evaluation and deployment, through to reporting research results. Although our focus is on enabling people from different disciplinary backgrounds to work together with better mutual understanding, we also highlight ways in which future research in this interdisciplinary space could be better supported.

Supporting Everyday Function in Chronic Pain Using Wearable Technology

While most rehabilitation technologies target situated exercise sessions and associated performance metrics, physiotherapists recommend physical activities that are integrated with everyday functioning. We conducted a 1-2 week home study to explore how people with chronic pain use wearable technology that senses and sonifies movement (i.e., movement mapped to sound in real-time) to do functional activity (e.g., loading the dishwasher). Our results show that real-time movement sonification led to an increased sense of control during challenging everyday tasks. Sonification calibrated to functional activity facilitated application of pain management techniques such as pacing. When calibrated to individual needs, sonification enabled serendipitous discovery of physical capabilities otherwise obscured by a focus on pain or a dysfunctional proprioceptive system. A physiotherapist was invited to comment on the implications of our findings. We conclude by discussing opportunities provided by wearable sensing technology to enable better functioning, the ultimate goal of physical rehabilitation.