Diagnosis and Biofeedback System for Stress

• Today, everyday life for many people contain many situations that may trigger stress or result in an individual living on an increased stress level under long time. High level of stress may cause serious health problems. It is known that respiratory rate is an important factor and can be used in diagnosis and biofeedback training, but available measurement of respiratory rate are not especially suitable for home and office use. The aim of this project is to develop a portable sensor system that can measure the stress level, during everyday situations e.g. at home and in work environment and can help the person to change the behaviour and decrease the stress level. The sensor explored is a finger temperature sensor. Clinical studies show that finger temperature, in general, decreases with stress; however this change pattern shows large individual variations. Diagnosing stress level from the finger temperature is difficult even for clinical experts. Therefore a computer-based stress diagnosis system is important. In this system, case-based reasoning and fuzzy logic have been applied to assists in stress diagnosis and biofeedback treatment utilizing the finger temperature sensor signal. An evaluation of the system with an expert in stress diagnosis shows promising result.

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