Designing Neurogames to Support Patients under Psychotherapy Treatment: Opportunities and Challenges of the MUSE Headband

Michael Pantförder, Andre Hellwig

2022

Abstract

In childhood and adolescence, mental development processes are crucial for a person’s long-term, cognitive health. Many young people have at least one characteristic that leads to psychological impairment and must be accompanied by therapy. Therapy success requires the constant execution of therapeutic exercises during and after therapy sessions. However, keeping the motivation of the patients upright for continuous cooperation is a key challenge, since the exercises are perceived as laborious. A digital, playful training application offers the potential to support the therapy of children and adolescents. Measuring brain activity plays an important role as it shows how good patients can push away negative thoughts affecting their mental disorder. For this purpose the fundamentals of serious games, neurofeedback, brain computer interfaces (BCIs) and electroencephalography (EEG) as well as different therapy-accompanying measures were examined. Based on the findings and a focus group with psychotherapists (N=3), a serious game was designed as a motivational concentration and attention training to support psychotherapy. During the game the easy-to-use MUSE headband measures concentration and integrates neurofeedback as a game mechanic. User tests with children (N=21) were performed to evaluate the developed prototype and gather further information on usability, technology acceptance and playfulness of the neurogame.

Paper Citation

in Harvard Style

Pantförder M. and Hellwig A. (2022). Designing Neurogames to Support Patients under Psychotherapy Treatment: Opportunities and Challenges of the MUSE Headband. In Proceedings of the 15th International Joint Conference on Biomedical Engineering Systems and Technologies (BIOSTEC 2022) - Volume 5: HEALTHINF; ISBN 978-989-758-552-4, SciTePress, pages 296-305. DOI: 10.5220/0010738500003123

in Bibtex Style

@conference{healthinf22,
author={Michael Pantförder and Andre Hellwig},
title={Designing Neurogames to Support Patients under Psychotherapy Treatment: Opportunities and Challenges of the MUSE Headband},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 15th International Joint Conference on Biomedical Engineering Systems and Technologies (BIOSTEC 2022) - Volume 5: HEALTHINF},
year={2022},
pages={296-305},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0010738500003123},
isbn={978-989-758-552-4},
}

in EndNote Style

TY - CONF

JO - Proceedings of the 15th International Joint Conference on Biomedical Engineering Systems and Technologies (BIOSTEC 2022) - Volume 5: HEALTHINF
TI - Designing Neurogames to Support Patients under Psychotherapy Treatment: Opportunities and Challenges of the MUSE Headband
SN - 978-989-758-552-4
AU - Pantförder M.
AU - Hellwig A.
PY - 2022
SP - 296
EP - 305
DO - 10.5220/0010738500003123
PB - SciTePress