Mixed Reality for a collective and adaptive mental health metaverse

Mixed Reality for a collective and adaptive mental health metaverse

05 January 2024 | Samuel Navas-Medrano*, Jose L. Soler-Dominguez and Patricia Pons
This research explores the potential of Mixed Reality (MR) technology to enhance mental health therapies within a metaverse environment. The metaverse, a multiuser, adaptive, three-dimensional digital space, combined with the interactive and immersive benefits of MR, offers a paradigm shift in mental health support delivery. Unlike traditional platforms, MR allows therapy within the user's familiar surroundings while incorporating social collaboration and interactions. The metaverse environment fosters personalization and deeper user engagement, offering a more tailored approach to computerized therapy. MR also enables real-time, smart adaptations to the user's psycho-physiological state, targeting unique patient needs across various therapeutic techniques, thus broadening mental health support. It also opens avenues for continuous emotional support in everyday life situations. The paper discusses the benefits and potential of integrating MR within a mental health metaverse, highlighting how this innovative approach could significantly complement traditional therapeutic methods, fostering improved treatment efficacy, focusing on social and collective experiences, and increasing patient engagement. The metaverse offers a shared, interconnected, and persistent virtual space where users can interact with each other and digital content in real-time. It includes virtual worlds, extended reality (XR) experiences, and other digital spaces where users can socialize, trade, conduct business, and engage in various activities. XR technologies, including VR, AR, and MR, have shown promising potential in mental health applications. VR and AR are especially interesting for Exposure Therapy (ET), allowing replication of scenarios in a simulated and controlled manner for progressive exposure. VR also helps patients who may experience difficulties engaging in visualization-based practices often required when using ET techniques. XR experiences can support attentional strategies such as mindfulness, breathing exercises, or relaxation techniques. These strategies can be supported by XR experiences, helping users reduce stress and improve feelings of relaxation. XR technologies can also be used to support adolescents' mental health through serious games and game mechanics. These approaches can increase adolescents' engagement, attendance, and adherence to treatment compared to traditional interventions like role-plays. XR therapeutic interventions have shown that participants around the patient using the device also intervene in the therapeutic activity, either providing advice or asking questions to the current participant. Sharing the same physical space in XR interventions can increase socialization and interactions between patients and therapists. The metaverse concept can be materialized across different technologies, with XR being the most appropriate due to its immersive capabilities. Immersion represents the capacity of a technology to deliver highly engaging and interactive experiences, fully transporting users into virtual, augmented, or mixed environments. XR technologies strive to blur the boundaries between the physical and digital worlds, creating a strong sense of presence and involvement within the digital environment. The metaverse builds upon the capabilities of these XR technologies, weaving them together to form a collective virtual universe that enables social interactions, commerce, entertainment, and educational experiences. In the mental health metaverse, conventional group therapies can be re-imagined and conducted in dynamic and innovative ways. Within this interconnected digital realm, participants can come togetherThis research explores the potential of Mixed Reality (MR) technology to enhance mental health therapies within a metaverse environment. The metaverse, a multiuser, adaptive, three-dimensional digital space, combined with the interactive and immersive benefits of MR, offers a paradigm shift in mental health support delivery. Unlike traditional platforms, MR allows therapy within the user's familiar surroundings while incorporating social collaboration and interactions. The metaverse environment fosters personalization and deeper user engagement, offering a more tailored approach to computerized therapy. MR also enables real-time, smart adaptations to the user's psycho-physiological state, targeting unique patient needs across various therapeutic techniques, thus broadening mental health support. It also opens avenues for continuous emotional support in everyday life situations. The paper discusses the benefits and potential of integrating MR within a mental health metaverse, highlighting how this innovative approach could significantly complement traditional therapeutic methods, fostering improved treatment efficacy, focusing on social and collective experiences, and increasing patient engagement. The metaverse offers a shared, interconnected, and persistent virtual space where users can interact with each other and digital content in real-time. It includes virtual worlds, extended reality (XR) experiences, and other digital spaces where users can socialize, trade, conduct business, and engage in various activities. XR technologies, including VR, AR, and MR, have shown promising potential in mental health applications. VR and AR are especially interesting for Exposure Therapy (ET), allowing replication of scenarios in a simulated and controlled manner for progressive exposure. VR also helps patients who may experience difficulties engaging in visualization-based practices often required when using ET techniques. XR experiences can support attentional strategies such as mindfulness, breathing exercises, or relaxation techniques. These strategies can be supported by XR experiences, helping users reduce stress and improve feelings of relaxation. XR technologies can also be used to support adolescents' mental health through serious games and game mechanics. These approaches can increase adolescents' engagement, attendance, and adherence to treatment compared to traditional interventions like role-plays. XR therapeutic interventions have shown that participants around the patient using the device also intervene in the therapeutic activity, either providing advice or asking questions to the current participant. Sharing the same physical space in XR interventions can increase socialization and interactions between patients and therapists. The metaverse concept can be materialized across different technologies, with XR being the most appropriate due to its immersive capabilities. Immersion represents the capacity of a technology to deliver highly engaging and interactive experiences, fully transporting users into virtual, augmented, or mixed environments. XR technologies strive to blur the boundaries between the physical and digital worlds, creating a strong sense of presence and involvement within the digital environment. The metaverse builds upon the capabilities of these XR technologies, weaving them together to form a collective virtual universe that enables social interactions, commerce, entertainment, and educational experiences. In the mental health metaverse, conventional group therapies can be re-imagined and conducted in dynamic and innovative ways. Within this interconnected digital realm, participants can come together
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