Cellular phone-based Biofeedback to treat physical and mental disorders

Abstract

Biofeedback is a technique that teaches a user to control physiological signals by using mental processes. It has been used to treat mental and physical disorders such as stress, anxiety, diabetes, hypertension, headache, Raynaud's syndrome and other health problems. Biofeedback has conventionally been used at the office of the therapist. Mobile biofeedback may improve the outcomes as there would not be restrictions of place and time. The acquisition board is based on the open hardware Arduino and communicated by Bluetooth to the cellular phone which was programmed to implement thermal and electrodermal response (EDR) biofeedback. Five participants were part of this study, they were able to increase the temperature of the index finger and increase EDR levels using the equipment. Both techniques of biofeedback showed to decrease anxiety and stress greater than doing a relaxing activity. Stress levels were assessed by State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) questionnaire used to record stress and anxiety traits. This study suggests that biofeedback might be implemented on mobile devices as a therapeutic tool for stress and anxiety.