By the end of 2020 over a 100 countries were under total or partial lockdown due to COVID-19 pandemic. In order to help the millions affected, Space Health looks for ways to push back the aggravation of mental illness such as depression and anxiety developed because of the isolation and lack routine, that can also reduce work performance. To deal with those problems, we designed an app targeting adults and over 16 teenagers.
For that purpose we developed a concept of an app that would use daily data collected through questions about how the user is feeling and then comparing list of results detect symptoms of mental disorders such as depression and anxiety derived from isolation. In positive cases the app will suggest the user to look for professional help(and even recommend and warn your friends ) being an important tool for psychologists and in long term even to astronauts.
In an attempt to to reduce isolation and socially connect the population we designed a social feature that allows the user to connect and interact with friends, showing what activities they are making during the day in times of reclusion. The app also include a simple task manager to organize daily activities. Besides that it is also possible to chat and do such tasks together online. In this way our team look to transform the lockdown reality in not such a bad experience bringing people together and giving psychological suport.
Our main motivation was the feeling of being powerless during this times and, despite we being a group of high school students with no knowledge on software and data science, what brought us together was the desire to contribute with our ideas. We saw a post one day on instagram about the NASA Space Apps Challenge and though it was the perfect way to try to do something to help, even if just a little, in such hard times for society where isolation is becoming routine.
The idea came while we were looking through NASA challenge website and saw all the extensive research in ensuring the astronauts welfare during months long confinement in space because we realise how hard it is to maintain physical and mental health in isolation. Through the astronaut reports we started to realise there were similarities between their condition and our own in this times so we decided to create a way of helping and making everyone's life a little easier during confinement.
Trying to expand communication between users and a better way of psychological support our objective is to develop an application of fairly simple access and use that bring the community together, helping to create and execute a healthy routine.
We intend to bring together data monitoring and analysis about the user to psychology to make mental health disorders easier to identify and search for help both during the pandemic and after. To do so, psychologists will have access to a specific page where he will be able to see his patient results and the analyzed data and will be able to talk to them via text or video chat. The app can also be used so phycology students can help analyze the information and help, since a teacher takes responsibility for them.
With the NASA research about isolation we are able to make a deep analysis of how isolation can affect mood, work and routine, highlighting the potential symptoms like sleep deprivation so we can develop countermeasures to mitigate psychological damage. In the article “Characterizing psychological risk, confinement and extremes(ICE)” is obvious that there is an increase in stress and erratic sleeping patterns in long periods of social isolation. Researches made with astronauts also conclude that sleep deprivation results in slower response to stimulus. That is why the app counts with an online routine where the user needs to achieve daily goals.
Our project focus is to analyze daily data from a report based in the astronauts methodology to live in isolation and the research characterizing the symptoms of social isolation on the human mind to draw conclusions about the general mental state of the user and indicate, in case of need, the help of a professional.
At first we were lost because it was our first hackathon but we had an idea and we were confident with it. We were convinced to create an application only for smartphones models but our project underwent many changes. Throughout the execution we had a hard time defining the core idea and working on it, because we had many functions to add to the application, but using the Affinities Diagram we were able to come to a consensus in the group about what our focus would be.
Another challenge to overcome was the use of a foreign language, as none of us are fluent in English. As we are regular high school students, we don't have much knowledge about hacking, using data from space agencies, or how to develop software and hardware, only one member of the group has a greater knowledge about programming, due to the technical course he takes.Thus, teamwork and the constant exchange of member knowledge were essential for the construction of the project and for the personal growth of each one, valuing more the collective.
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