ARCADIA mixed reality platform for mental health and wellbeing

This case study presents ARCADIA, a novel Mixed Reality (MR) platform designed to support holistic health and wellbeing. Unlike traditional VR which isolates the user, our MR solution integrates gamified digital therapy elements directly into the user’s physical environment, allowing for familiar and more comfortable sessions in which they can also interact face to face with their therapists or caretakers.

The platform targets four core pillars of health:

1. Emotional Regulation & Mindfulness: Immersive biofeedback and relaxation scenarios where the user’s physical state is captured through wearable sensors, and this information is used to guide breathing exercises, foster self-reflection and self-compassion, manage intrusive thoughts and reduce anxiety.
2. Occupational therapy: Gamified activities that support occupational therapy scenarios such as self-care, daily routines and habits, and digital animal therapy activities by taking care of a digital avatar of an animal.
3. Physical Rehabilitation: Utilizing spatial computing to encourage range-of-motion exercises. Users interact with virtual objects anchored in their real room (e.g., reaching for digital targets), turning repetitive physical therapy into engaging gameplay.
4. Cognitive Rehabilitation: Gamified memory and attention activities that overlay the real world, requiring users to navigate their physical space to achieve the goals, thereby training dual-tasking and spatial awareness.

The objective is to increase patient adherence to therapy protocols through high-engagement gamification while collecting precise biometric and interaction data for clinicians. See also a video presentation.