Virtual Reality-Based Sensory Triggers and Gaze-Based Estimation for Mental Health Care

Recent studies underline the importance of the cognitive reserve for mental health, especially in dementia care, which is supported by stress reduction, joyful experience and meditation. Mindfulness training has previously been successfully applied to dementia and indicates a lasting positive effect on cognitive reserve, well-being and motivation [1.Clin. Psychol. Rev. 31:449–464]. We investigated the potential of unobtrusive technology for the measurement of eye movements in Virtual Reality (VR)-based mindfulness training. The objective of this research is to develop software estimators for cognitive assessment and mindfulness trait in order to apply VR technology in the future as a screening instrument, monitoring tool and thereby serving for decision support in mental health care. Eye movement analysis within a pilot study demonstrated significantly different results for persons with Alzheimer’s dementia and healthy controls. These results indicate that significant conclusions are drawn on relevant mental health parameters even within a very short eye movement measurement period applying few minutes of observation of carefully selected video-based stimuli.