The modern way of living along with the ageing of population brings in the frontline two main categories of “diseases”, pain and mental health issues. People can experience pain as a chronic, acute or intermittent condition, or a combination of the three. Chronic pain is a complex condition embracing physical, psychological and social factors, leading to loss of independence, poor quality of life or even disability. It affects around 20% of people worldwide. Distress and functional impairment often accompany chronic pain, making it a major source of suffering and economic burden.Very recently, the world Health Organization, recognizing the importance of pain, launched the 11th version of the International Classification of Disease (ICD-11), where pain was for the first time classified as a disease itself. A main characteristic of pain is that it is always subjective. Currently, there is no objective measure of pain. Patient reports are the primary source of estimates pain prevalence and severity. Thus, obtaining an objective picture of the extent, significance and consequences of pain is still difficult. Moreover, the management of pain is another critical issue needing careful consideration. The underlying diseases that cause pain can vary, while the treatment approach (pharmaceutical or not) is closely corelated to this. On the other hand, negative mental states like depression and anxiety are big problems in modern societies, usually due to stressful situations (financial problems, work problems, interpersonal issues and many others). These mental health problems can cause many different symptoms. They might affect how someone is feeling physically, mentally and also how he/she behaves. Mental health conditions such as depression, anxiety and stress represent substantial financial costs for employers and employees, as well as a significant loss for society at large. Absenteeism and presenteeism affect the productivity in the workplace and the general economy as well. An EU-level estimate of the overall costs, direct health costs and lost productivity is more than 450 billion EUR per year.
Nowadays it is widely recognized that Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) may be a powerful means for pain or mental health management. However, more knowledge is needed about the effectiveness of these interventions or the way they promote good health, and about the barriers to effective implementation of such interventions. Numerous research projects have been funded by the European Union exploiting the use of smartphones and wearables to support healthcare industry. Latest technological developments in artificial intelligence, affective computing, machine learning, and other domains, can provide the tools towards a better future for people. Therefore, there is an urgent need to create new technologies to monitor the physical and mental health of people during their daily life.
Considering the aforementioned remarks, the proposed workshop focuses on the following topics:
Researchers will present their work and receive feedback from their peers. As part of the larger theme of the PETRA conference, participants will also have the opportunity to interact with top scientists working with pervasive assistive technologies to exchange valuable ideas that could advance the state-of-the-art in the field.
Topics of interest regard research (data collection and analysis), assessment and intervention and include, but are not limited to:
ACM will be the publisher of the proceedings of PETRA conference and workshops. The proceedings will be a volume in the ACM International Conference Proceedings Series in the ACM Digital Library. Authors must follow the same formatting guidelines as employed for the main conference paper submissions. Refer to the guidelines here. You can submit your paper using the main conference submission system by selecting the option Workshop Paper from the dropdown menu. To submit a paper, please visit the submission system.
The list of workshops and deadines are available at the main workshops page. All workshops have the same deadlines.