The challenge chosen by our group is "The isolation solution". In order perceive a solution, we have to face the problems, and a significant one, in this case, is the psychological challenge of maintaining the well being while staying at home by yourself or with you family.
In order to mitigate cases of anxiety, depression, sleep and food disorders, that can get worse or arise in the situation, our team came up with the idea of an app that will be an engageable platform to connect the user/patience to health care professionals.
Based on NASA's Virtual Space Station, which is a computer-based therapy modules, our app also collects information about the user well-being, but we use this data to inform the professional that will assist them in order to provide him ou her with information that make possible the development of a personalized treatment.
This way, we hope to make the social isolation period psychologically healthy and maintain the user good habits about well being after the pandemics, since our platform is angageable and offers an economic way of accessing treatments.
Also, we hope health professionals will use the tool to maintain the treatments of their patients during the pandemics, avoiding social isolation breaks, but also continue using it after the pandemics, since it offers advantages, such as time and money economic, since it is not necessary to pay for a place to work or face daily traffic, for example.
A more human approach based on our tool could be tested in the VSS, since an article about the evaluation of the systems by user(mainly astronauts) appointed that sometimes the computer is not effective because it lacks empathy about the complexity of human thoughts(like the depression treatment evaluations).
The challenge chosen by our team was “The isolation solution”. After that, we engaged on a Discord meeting to share our thoughts on problems related to the topic and then we proposed solutions for them. When compiling what was discussed, we concluded that we talked about: loneliness and distance from friends, family or support network; difficulty to organize tasks and obligations while being in the same place(home); psychological problems that may arise or be aggravated by the moment of tension. Then, we proposed solutions, such as: a chat channel in which the person talks to a human or a machine, and would have to guess with whom he is talking; a program that set up a routine for an individual or a family, with a gamified interaction; an application that helps in psychological treatment.
From internal discussions and feedback from mentors, we decided to develop an application related to psychology. We read articles from NASA's Human Resources team and noticed similarities in the situation of astronauts in space, scientists in the Arctic and isolated people in the pandemic, since there is stress and confinement in these cases. In addition, we read about the VSS tool and decide to use the application.
Due to social isolation, several people had to stop their medical ventures in different medical areas, such as psychology and psychiatry, for example.In this case, our team thought about developing a communication channel between patient and health professional so that the treatment could continue in the most natural way possible. Our original point is that we used NASA’s method used with astronauts, the VSS, a computer-based series of therapy modules in which they do a physical and mental self-assessment. With the results in hand, the health professional can provide a personalized intervention and increase the chance of providing a successful solution.
The advantages and attractive factors for the user is the gamification, since he or she will earn points for the evolution in well being and for the time using the platform, also the contribution of a greater linearity in the treatment. For the professional, a benefit is the opportunity of not worrying about administrative charges such as rent, for example.
Our main tools for building the prototype were Photoshop for creating the application layout. Also, we used Powtoon to make the presentation video.
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