Ontology‐based ubiquitous monitoring and treatment against depression

Abstract

Mental health care is a major cost to all EU nations, and in many case, it results in additional costs to a country's economy due to the lost of productivity and concerns at the societal level. Cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) is by far the treatment of choice for mental disorders such as depression, anxiety disorders, eating disorders, chronic insomnia, etc. Although effective, CBT suffers from a lack of accessibility and personalisation. In this paper, we proposed an ontology‐enhanced ubiquitous monitoring and treatment model for the purpose of assisting people to overcome the challenges of mental disorders. We first presented a context ontology for mental disorders as the basis upon which semantics‐enhanced methods are developed for gathering, formalising and manipulating patients' data. We implemented the proposed framework to facilitate online CBT, for treating depression at the current stage, which combines together talk/chat/messaging services, helps in retrieving neurofeedback, and supports collaborative diagnosis when necessary. An online statistic report was also integrated into our system. Finally, the paper discussed the proposed framework by comparing it against relevant research in the field and elaborated on possible further research directions. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.