Corinna A. Christmann

Stress Management Apps With Regard to Emotion-Focused Coping and Behavior Change Techniques: A Content Analysis

Background Chronic stress has been shown to be associated with disease. This link is not only direct but also indirect through harmful health behavior such as smoking or changing eating habits. The recent mHealth trend offers a new and promising approach to support the adoption and maintenance of appropriate stress management techniques. However, only few studies have dealt with the inclusion of evidence-based content within stress management apps for mobile phones. Objective The aim of this study was to evaluate stress management apps on the basis of a new taxonomy of effective emotion-focused stress management techniques and an established taxonomy of behavior change techniques. Methods Two trained and independent raters evaluated 62 free apps found in Google Play with regard to 26 behavior change and 15 emotion-focused stress management techniques in October 2015. Results The apps included an average of 4.3 behavior change techniques (SD 4.2) and 2.8 emotion-focused stress management techniques (SD 2.6). The behavior change technique score and stress management technique score were highly correlated (r=.82, P=.01). Conclusions The broad variation of different stress management strategies found in this sample of apps goes in line with those found in conventional stress management interventions and self-help literature. Moreover, this study provided a first step toward more detailed and standardized taxonomies, which can be used to investigate evidence-based content in stress management interventions and enable greater comparability between different intervention types.

Evidence for a General Auditory Processing Deficit in Developmental Dyslexia From a Discrimination Paradigm Using Speech Versus Nonspeech Sounds Matched in Complexity

PURPOSE It is unknown whether phonological deficits are the primary cause of developmental dyslexia or whether they represent a secondary symptom resulting from impairments in processing basic acoustic parameters of speech. This might be due, in part, to methodological difficulties. Our aim was to overcome two of these difficulties: the comparability of stimulus material and task in speech versus nonspeech conditions. METHOD In this study, the authors (a) assessed auditory processing of German vowel center stimuli, spectrally rotated versions of these stimuli, and bands of formants; (b) used the same task for linguistic and nonlinguistic conditions; and (c) varied systematically temporal and spectral parameters inherent in the German vowel system. Forty-two adolescents and adults with and without reading disabilities participated. RESULTS Group differences were found for all linguistic and nonlinguistic conditions for both temporal and spectral parameters. Auditory deficits were identified in most but not all participants with dyslexia. These deficits were not restricted to speech stimuli-they were also found for nonspeech stimuli with equal and lower complexity compared with the vowel stimuli. Temporal deficits were not observed in isolation. CONCLUSION These results support the existence of a general auditory processing impairment in developmental dyslexia.

Earlier timbre processing of instrumental tones compared to equally complex spectrally rotated sounds as revealed by the mismatch negativity

Harmonically rich sounds have been shown to be processed more efficiently by the human brain compared to single sinusoidal tones. To control for stimulus complexity as a potentially confounding factor, tones and equally complex spectrally rotated sounds, have been used in the present study to investigate the role of the overtone series in sensory auditory processing in non-musicians. Timbre differences in instrumental tones with equal pitch elicited a MMN which was earlier compared to that elicited by the spectrally rotated sounds, indicating that harmonically rich tones are processed faster compared to non-musical sounds without an overtone series, even when pitch is not the relevant information.

Development of an Inertial Motion Capture System for Clinical Application

Abstract The ability to capture human motion based on wearable sensors has a wide range of applications, e.g., in healthcare, sports, well-being, and workflow analysis. This article focuses on the development of an online-capable system for accurately capturing joint kinematics based on inertial measurement units (IMUs) and its clinical application, with a focus on locomotion analysis for rehabilitation. The article approaches the topic from the technology and application perspectives and fuses both points of view. It presents, in a self-contained way, previous results from three studies as well as new results concerning the technological development of the system. It also correlates these with new results from qualitative expert interviews with medical practitioners and movement scientists. The interviews were conducted for the purpose of identifying relevant application scenarios and requirements for the technology used. As a result, the potentials of the system for the different identified application scenarios are discussed and necessary next steps are deduced from this analysis.

Effective Visualization of Long Term Health Data to Support Behavior Change

The reflective stage, which is crucial for behavior change, can be facilitated with suitable visualizations that allow users to answer specific questions with regard to their health data. To date, effective visualizations which combine time series data and the appraisal of this data in one chart are, however, rare. To close this gap in research, twenty participants compared two alternative long-term visualizations of health behavior: an accumulated bar chart and a point chart which both include appraisals of the underlying health data based on current recommendations of leading health organizations, such as the World Health Organization or the European Food Information Council. Participants answered three types of question (progress over time, correlations between different health behaviors, and health consciousness). The sequence of visualization for the underlying data sets was cross balanced over participants. The accumulated bar chart resulted in more trials in which participants were unable to answer. In some cases, this type of visualization also resulted in biased interpretations with regard to progress over time and health consciousness. Summarizing, we recommend the point chart, in which the background is colored according to the recommendation of the respective health behavior. Both types of visualization are, however, not optimal for the identification of correlations.

Shared Book Reading Promotes Not Only Language Development, But Also Grapheme Awareness in German Kindergarten Children

Effects of shared book reading on expressive vocabulary and grapheme awareness without letter instruction in German kindergarteners (longitudinal; N = 69, 3;0–4;8 years) were investigated. Expressive vocabulary was measured by using a standardized test; grapheme awareness was measured by asking children to identify one grapheme per trial presented amongst non-letter distractors. Two methods of shared book reading were investigated, literacy enrichment (additional books) and teacher training in shared book reading strategies, both without explicit letter instruction. Whereas positive effects of shared book reading on expressive vocabulary were evident in numerous previous studies, the impact of shared book reading on grapheme awareness has not yet been investigated. Both methods resulted in positive effects on children’s expressive vocabulary and grapheme awareness over a period of 6 months. Thus, early shared book reading may not only be considered to be a tool for promoting the development of expressive vocabulary, but also for implicit acquisition of grapheme awareness. The latter is considered an important precondition required for the explicit learning of grapheme–phoneme conversion rules (letter knowledge).

Stress-Mentor: Linking Gamification and Behavior Change Theory in a Stress Management Application

Gamification is widely accepted in mobile health applications as one way to enhance user experience. Moreover, linking gamification with insights from behavior change theory offers a promising approach to ensure user’s adherence and long-term behavior change. Gamification is, however, hardly found in current stress management applications. To close this gap in research, we present Stress-Mentor, a stress management app that realizes established behavior change techniques within an extensive gamification framework.

Towards More Interactive Stress-Related Self-monitoring Tools to Improve Quality of Life

Self-monitoring with diaries is one way to identify stress causing events and the respective personal reactions. Considering the broad distribution of smartphones over the past decade, an interactive stress diary application (app) was developed. Diary entries are linked to changes in the appearance of an avatar to support regular usage behavior through vicarious reinforcement.

No Game, No Pain?: Towards a Mobile Exergame for Rehabilitation

Exergames are considered useful to facilitate specific exercises in rehabilitation. This context, however, raises questions regarding pain management: How do we have to consider pain sensations in game design? Beside some rules to avoid overexertion, these important aspects have rather been neglected in prior research. Within this contribution we address these questions and present an example of a mobile exergame for thrombosis prophylaxis. In a pilot study, 40 healthy young adults rated their subjective pain sensation on a numeric rating scale before and after having completed one of two versions of the exergame (counting of exercise repetitions only vs. controlling a beach ball through exercise repetitions). Beside possible effects of gender and level of fitness on pain reports, we focus on limitations that should be addressed in future research.

jumpBALL - Ein mobiles Exergame für die Thromboseprophylaxe

Über 37.000 Patienten wurden 2015 bundesweit in Krankenhäusern unter der Hauptdiagnose I80 (Thrombose, Phlebitis und Thrombophlebitis) behandelt. Bewegungsübungen, wie beispielsweise die MuskelVenen-Pumpe, werden als allgemeine Basismaßnahmen zur Thromboseprophylaxe für alle Risikogruppen empfohlen. Allerdings können solche repetitiven Übungen schnell monoton und langweilig werden, wodurch die Motivation des Patienten sinkt und die Therapietreue gefährdet wird.