Mental health therapy is often limited by distance, stigma, and outdated tools. The CORE-MHC project is exploring how immersive technologies can help remove these barriers by enabling therapists and patients to meet and interact in real time — no matter where they are.
Keep reading to discover how CORE-MHC is using mixed reality (MR) and the CORTEX2 framework to transform remote mental health care.
Q: What is CORE-MHC in one sentence?
A: CORE-MHC aims to facilitate interactive, gamified remote therapeutic experiences between mental health patients and professionals using MR, building upon the CORTEX2 framework.
Q: What problem are you solving? What makes your solution unique?
A: The uniqueness of our solution lies in the fact that it is the first remote therapeutic platform based on mixed reality technologies. This platform enables therapists and patients to participate in remote or in-person therapeutic sessions, utilising real-time data from physiological sensors to gain valuable insights into their psychophysical state. By incorporating gamified MR interactions, it enhances patient engagement and maximises the effectiveness of treatment. The system is designed to improve accessibility to quality mental health care, regardless of the patient’s location or available facilities.
Q: What are CORE-MHC’s main objectives?
A: CORE-MHC aims to:
- Help to bridge the treatment gap by making mental health services more accessible and convenient, regardless of the location.
- Boost patient engagement and motivation, and reduce stigmatisation, by incorporating gamification mechanics into the experience.
- Address the user experience challenges in prototypical MR tools by making mental health therapy a more approachable and effective solution for everyone.
- Prevent individual and isolated environments for therapy in XR, where therapists have no ability to guide or interact with their patients.
CORTEX2 support programme progress
Q: What have you achieved so far?
A: The Institute of Computer Technology (ITI) and Fundación SASM have carried out online and in-person co-design sessions to define the use case and collect input from different stakeholders. The team has tested several pilots and demos using the Rainbow platform and the CORTEX2 framework to understand what works best.
Based on this work, they have defined the system architecture and developed an early prototype for an animal therapy session. This allows the therapist to see the patient’s actions in real time while the patient receives live video guidance. Another prototype enables two users, each with a mixed reality headset, to interact in the same virtual session from different locations.
Q: How is participating in CORTEX2 supporting CORE-MHC?
A: Participating in CORTEX2 has allowed us to strengthen the collaboration between ITI and Fundación SASM, working together to define a use-case scenario that could facilitate real therapeutic interventions and situations that mental health professionals encounter in their everyday practice. ITI has gained a better understanding of the mental health domain, while Fundación SASM is actively involved in the definition of requirements of the system and the identification of potential users of their mental health services that could benefit from the integration of this XR solution.
In addition, we have been able to participate in Stereopsia 2024 thanks to CORTEX2, which has helped us to connect with the European landscape of XR professionals, academics and European consortia. This has helped us to disseminate our advances, as well as potential collaborations for future projects.
Q: What are your next steps within the programme?
A: Our next steps will be to finalise the implementation of the gamified therapeutic activity for both PC to headset communication, as well as headset-to-headset communication. Then, we will validate the solution with therapists and patients at Fundación SASM to assess the usability and effectiveness of the remote therapeutic experience in mixed reality.
Learn more about CORE-MHC and stay updated on its progress!
Want to explore more XR innovation? Browse all our supported projects on the CORTEX2 website:
Open Call 1 winners – Open Call 2 winners
