Ubiquitous Biofeedback Multimedia Systems

Abstract

Human wellbeing, in a large component, relies on the harmony between the body and the mind. Unfortunately, we often miss or ignore important signals from our bodies, and sometimes this can negatively impact our health. Therefore, the use of intelligent systems that grasp such signals and convey them in an intuitive manner to our minds can result in great health benefits. In this Thesis, we introduce a family of multimedia technologies and techniques aimed at realizing such systems. We call them: Ubiquitous Biofeedback Multimedia Systems. Although the notion of clinical biofeedback has been around for years, we introduce the concept of Ubiquitous Biofeedback where the biofeedback operation is given geographical and temporal ubiquity attributes. A Ubiquitous Biofeedback reference model is introduced in the Thesis to provide an abstract structural representation of the various components at play in a typical non-clinical biofeedback environment. Two systems that implement the reference model’s components are presented. These systems implement the concept of Ubiquitous Biofeedback through the introduction of innovative stress management methods. An important component of these systems guides users through a relaxation routine. Therefore, a mathematical model is developed in the goal of personalizing the relaxation process. Its objective is to suggest relaxation techniques to a user during a stressful episode based on her or his preferences, history of what worked well and appropriateness for the context. The mental stress monitoring mechanism built into the Ubiquitous Biofeedback systems presented in this Thesis relies on the measurement of Heart Rate Variability (HRV). Therefore, HRV based methods for tracking mental stress accumulation and acute manifestations during long term monitoring have been devised. Also, since HRV signals can be plagued by artifacts, several algorithms are contributed to the effort of correcting such occurrences.