Personal health systems for mental health: the European projects

Since the European funded project VREPAR--Virtual Reality in Neuro-Psycho-Physiology (1995)--different European research activities have been using virtual reality and advanced information and communication technologies to improve the quality of care in the treatment of many different mental health disorders including anxiety disorders, eating disorders and obesity. Now the European Commission funding is shifting from the traditional hospital-centred and reactive healthcare delivery model toward a person-centred and preventive one. The main outcome of this shift is the "Personal Health Systems" (PHS) paradigm that aims at offering continuous, quality controlled, and personalized health services to empowered individuals regardless of location. The paper introduces four recently funded projects--Interstress, Monarca, Optimi and Psyche--that aim at using PHS based on virtual reality, biosensors and/or mobile technologies to improve the treatment of bipolar disorders, depression and psychological stress.