Dimitri Konstantas

Mobile patient monitoring: The MobiHealth system

The emergence of high bandwidth public wireless networks and miniaturized personal mobile devices give rise to new mobile healthcare services. To this end, the MobiHealth system provides highly customizable vital signs tele-monitoring and tele-treatment system based on a body area network (BAN) and a mobile health care (m-health) service platform utilizing next generation public wireless networks. The developed system allows the incorporation of diverse medical sensors via wireless connections, and the live transmission of the measured vital signs to healthcare providers as well as real-time feedback to the patient. Since 2002 the system has undergone substantial development in consecutive EU and national research projects. Diverse trials with different healthcare scenarios and patient groups in different European countries have been conducted in all projects. These have been performed to test the service and the network infrastructure including its suitability for m-health applications.

Video games as a complementary therapy tool in mental disorders: PlayMancer, a European multicentre study

Background Previous review studies have suggested that computer games can serve as an alternative or additional form of treatment in several areas (schizophrenia, asthma or motor rehabilitation). Although several naturalistic studies have been conducted showing the usefulness of serious video games in the treatment of some abnormal behaviours, there is a lack of serious games specially designed for treating mental disorders. Aim The purpose of our project was to develop and evaluate a serious video game designed to remediate attitudinal, behavioural and emotional processes of patients with impulse-related disorders. Method and results The video game was created and developed within the European research project PlayMancer. It aims to prove potential capacity to change underlying attitudinal, behavioural and emotional processes of patients with impulse-related disorders. New interaction modes were provided by newly developed components, such as emotion recognition from speech, face and physiological reactions, while specific impulsive reactions were elicited. The video game uses biofeedback for helping patients to learn relaxation skills, acquire better self-control strategies and develop new emotional regulation strategies. In this article, we present a description of the video game used, rationale, user requirements, usability and preliminary data, in several mental disorders.

Object-Oriented Information Systems

This chapter focuses on information systems and in particular research trends in Object-oriented Information Systems and Business Information Technology. The paper outlines the foundations of Object-oriented Information Systems and Business Information Technology. The domain of Object Oriented Information Systems is analysed and a generic structure of OOIS as a branch of computer science is derived. The domain of Business Information Technology is analysed and presented within the context of the Business and Information Systems. It defines both information and information systems from computing and business perspectives and shows how current information systems fit into this area. This paper looks at the foundations and research trends in these multi-disciplinary areas.

Continuous monitoring of vital constants for mobile users: the MobiHealth approach

MobiHealth aims at introducing new mobile value-added services in the area of mobile healthcare, based on 2.5 (GPRS) and 3G (UMTS) technologies. This is achieved by the integration of sensors and actuators to a Wireless Body Area Network (BAN). These sensors and actuators continuously measure and transmit vital constants along with voice and images/video to health service providers and brokers, improving on one side the life of patients and allowing on the other side the introduction of new value-added services in the areas of disease prevention and diagnostic, remote assistance, para-health services, physical state monitoring (sports) and even clinical research. Furthermore, the MobiHealth BAN system supports the fast and reliable application of remote assistance in case of accidents by allowing the paramedics to send reliable vital constants data as well as audio and video directly from the accident site. Trials are underway focusing on home care, trauma care and ambulatory monitoring.

Muse: A Multimedia Filing System

New technology is changing the way we store documents. This experimental system features flexible document retrieval, a distributed architecture, and the capacity to store many very large documents.

Mobihealth: Mobile Health Services Based on Body Area Networks

In this chapter we describe the concept of MobiHealth and the approach developed during the MobiHealth project (MobiHealth, 2002). The concept was to bring together the technologies of Body Area Networks (BANs), wireless broadband communications and wearable medical devices to provide mobile healthcare services for patients and health professionals. These technologies enable remote patient care services such as management of chronic conditions and detection of health emergencies. Because the patient is free to move anywhere whilst wearing the MobiHealth BAN, patient mobility is maximised. The vision is that patients can enjoy enhanced freedom and quality of life through avoidance or reduction of hospital stays. For the health services it means that pressure on overstretched hospital services can be alleviated.

Hovering Information - Self-Organising Information that Finds Its Own Storage

A piece of Hovering Information is a geo-localized information residing in a highly dynamic environment such as a mobile ad hoc network. This information is attached to a geographical point, called the anchor location, and to its vicinity area, called anchor area. A piece of hovering information is responsible for keeping itself alive, available and accessible to other devices within its anchor area. Hovering information uses mechanisms such as active hopping, replication and dissemination among mobile nodes to satisfy the above requirements. It does not rely on any central server. This paper presents the hovering information concept and discusses results of simulations performed for two algorithms aiming to ensure the availability of a piece of hovering information at its anchor area.

Video game therapy for emotional regulation and impulsivity control in a series of treated cases with bulimia nervosa.

Although standard psychological treatments have been successful in treating several core features in eating disorders (ED), other characteristics such as emotional regulation or impulsivity appear to be more resistant to change. There is a growing body of evidence to support the efficacy of cognitive remediation for cognitive and emotional difficulties in ED. Playmancer/ Islands is a video game (VG) designed to specifically treat mental disorders, characterized by problems in impulse control. The objective of the game is to increase self-control over emotions, decision making and behaviours. The aim of this study is to describe the results from a consecutive series of nine bulimia nervosa patients who were treated with the VG in addition to cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT). The outcomes included clinical and psychopathological questionnaires, and physiological measures were obtained during the VG. Emotional regulation improved, heart rate variability increased, and respiratory rate and impulsivity measures reduced after the treatment. These findings suggest that VG training may enhance treatment for ED.

The Facial and Subjective Emotional Reaction in Response to a Video Game Designed to Train Emotional Regulation (Playmancer)

Several aspects of social and emotional functioning are abnormal in people with eating disorders. The aim of the present study was to measure facial emotional expression in patients with eating disorders and healthy controls whilst playing a therapeutic video game (Playmancer) designed to train individuals in emotional regulation. Participants were 23 ED patients (11 AN, 12 BN) and 11 HCs. ED patients self reported more anger at baseline but expressed less facial expression of anger during the Playmancer game. The discrepancy between self-report and non-verbal expression may lead to problems in social communication.

Object Oriented Interoperability

Object Oriented Interoperability is an extension and generalization of the Procedure Oriented Interoperability approaches taken in the past. It provides an interoperability support frame by considering the object as the basic interoperation unit. This way interoperation is based on higher level abstractions and it is independent of the specific interface through which a service is used. A prototype implementation demonstrates both the feasibility of the ideas and the related implementation issues.