Adolescence (ages 13-18) is a time of dynamic development in a young person’s life, and can be profoundly affected with long-term consequences when confronted prematurely with mortality, due to the diagnoses and treatment of cancer. Adventure-based therapy (ABT), which uses outdoor leisure activities with an element of risk, has been shown to have a positive impact on the physical, psychologica...

The whiteness of our teeth has become an essential element of our personal appearance, and is reinforced by the publicity images that invade our daily life. This media pressure lies behind the increasing demands of patients seeking simple, lowcost aesthetic treatments. Our patients are more and more concerned about their physical appearance and the image that they project. The image of health i...

Haptic feedback is a design element for human-computer interfaces, and this paper discusses when and how it can be used to best effect in interactive applications. It begins with consideration of the unique attributes of the touch sense in physiological and psychological terms, and the nature of information and control that touching provides. It reviews where active touching helps, by setting f...

SUMMARY Chronic low back pain (CLBP) is challenging to treat with its significant psychological and cognitive behavioural element involved. Mindfulness meditation helps alter the behavioural response in chronic pain situations. Significant body of research in the filed of mindfulness meditation comes from the work of Dr Kabat-Zinn. The current evidence in the field, though not grade one, shows ...

We propose a novel system that incorporates physiological monitoring as part of the human–computer interface. The sensing element is a thermal camera that is employed as a computer peripheral. Through bioheat modeling of facial imagery almost the full range of vital signs can be extracted, including localize blood flow, cardiac pulse, and breath rate. This physiological information can then be ...

Flexible and wearable sensors for human performance sensing have received increased attention, particularly for fitness, healthcare, sports, and military applications. In particular, the measurement of human vital signals provides rich datasets for assessing the subject’s physiological or psychological condition, which are directly linked to performance. Instead of using conventional, bulky, we...

The relationship between boredom proneness and health-symptom reporting was examined. Undergraduate students (N = 200) completed the Boredom Proneness Scale and the Hopkins Symptom Checklist. A multiple analysis of covariance indicated that individuals with high boredom-proneness total scores reported significantly higher ratings on all five subscales of the Hopkins Symptom Checklist (Obsessive...

Health is a state of homeostasis of four principle kinds, namely, biochemical, physiological, psychological, and social. In this article, we complete this theory with a fifth element, namely, spiritual balance. Existential attitudes have been found to be closely related to identity formation, moral development, value-related attitudes, personal goals, and lifestyle choices. Meaning in life and ...

An individual's first sexual experience is a highly salient and meaningful event, with potential to shape sexual scripts and the affect associated with sexual expression. Using data from the National Health and Social Life Survey, we tested abstinence-only advocates; assertions that premarital sex results in psychological and physical harm such as sexual dysfunction, sex guilt, poor health, sex...

Several models have been proposed to conceptualize psychological representations of health, illness, and bodily sensations. These models differ as to the cognitive and affective components they include, whether they study the interaction of these components, and whether associations between psychological representations of bodily states and affective and behavioral reactions to these representa...