Abstract:
The present invention provides methods and apparatuses to enhance wellness. In particular, the present invention provides a processor, a biofeedback sensor, and a wellness enhancing program that may comprise a series of multimedia events. The processor monitors a student&#39;s biometric information via the biofeedback sensor and uses the information to influence the wellness enhancing program.

Description:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION  
       [0001]     The present invention relates to wellness and, more particularly, methods and apparatuses to allow remote wellness coaching.  
       BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION  
       [0002]     General emotional and physical wellness have been a concern for consumers for many years. Wellness products have emerged in the last decade to become a 100 billion dollar industry. Some wellness products include dietary products, such as, health food, multivitamins, etc., physical activity, such as, yoga and the like, and emotional care, such as, for example, counseling, meditation, and the like, or combinations thereof.  
         [0003]     Personal wellness can be enhanced if a person learns how to control or influence their biometrics, such as, for example, heart rate, breathing, and the like. Measuring biometrics and learning how to control a body&#39;s response using a biofeedback paradigm helps reduce emotional and physical discomfort caused by stress, for example.  
         [0004]     Learning how to control and regulate individual biometrics as a wellness tool frequently requires a student or client to attend a session with a psychiatrist, biofeedback technician, or other biofeedback coach. During these sessions, the student is provided direct feedback from the coach regarding the employed techniques.  
         [0005]     However, using a coach typically requires traveling to an office or other facility so the student can meet with the coach. Driving to and from the office or other facility is inconvenient and can diminish the overall experience. Alternatively, some coaches visit a student&#39;s home, but this is expensive. Moreover, the personal coach is unavailable when traveling or if the student moves.  
         [0006]     Thus, it would be desirous to provide methods and apparatuses to allow wellness coaching in the home of the user without having a live person (coach) visit the home.  
       SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION  
       [0007]     To attain the advantage of and in accordance with the purpose of the present invention, methods of for enhancing wellness are provided. The method comprises displaying multimedia events to a student at a local processor and monitoring biometric information of the student. The method further comprises using the monitored biometric information to modify the multimedia events displayed to the student.  
         [0008]     The present invention further provides apparatuses to enhance wellness. The apparatus comprises a local processor accessible by a student. The student can access a wellness enhancing program. The apparatus further comprises a biofeedback sensor connected to the local processor to monitor the biometric information of the student. The biometric information gathered by the biofeedback sensor is used to influence the wellness enhancing program and for optional synchronous or asynchronous examination by a coach through a network connection.  
         [0009]     The foregoing and other features, utilities and advantages of the invention will be apparent from the following more particular description of a preferred embodiment of the invention as illustrated in the accompanying drawings. 
     
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING  
       [0010]     The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated in and constitute a part of this specification, illustrate embodiments of the present invention, and together with the description, serve to explain the principles thereof. Like items in the drawings are referred to using the same numerical reference.  
         [0011]      FIG. 1  is a functional block diagram of a wellness system consistent with an embodiment of the present invention;  
         [0012]      FIG. 2  is a flowchart illustrative of a wellness method consistent with an embodiment of the present invention;  
         [0013]      FIG. 3  is a graphical representation of potential items displayable on a graphical user interface consistent with the present invention; and  
         [0014]      FIG. 4  is a flowchart illustrative of a wellness method consistent with another embodiment of the present invention. 
     
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION  
       [0015]     An embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS.  1  to  4 . As an initial matter, a coach teaches a client or student conventional biometric techniques. However, it is desirous to eliminate the physical presence of the coach altogether as a participant in the wellness session. The present invention provides apparatuses and methods to eliminate the coach by the use of a biofeedback device used in conjunction with specialized programming running on the client&#39;s local computer, or running on a remote processor and delivered to the client&#39;s local computer. The program allows the client himself to monitor and score the client&#39;s progress and provide the necessary multimedia feedback to encourage, direct and/or “coach” and score the client&#39;s progress. Alternatively, the program allows the coach to remotely monitor and score the client&#39;s progress and provide the necessary multimedia feedback to encourage, direct and/or “coach” and score the client&#39;s progress. It is well known that there exists a multitude of books, tapes, DVDs, and the like that provide self-coaching for wellness. However, the addition of biofeedback hardware and software interfaces in the client&#39;s home, and the ability of the client to monitor and score his or her progress using biofeedback is one difference between the existing books, tapes, DVDs, and the like and the present invention. Conventionally, this feedback was only possible through a biofeedback coach that provided the monitoring, coaching, and scoring. The present invention, however, enables wellness coaching, monitoring, feedback and scoring all within a local (or remote) program available within the client&#39;s home, desktop or laptop, computer or other processor. The present invention removes the live coach and provides a virtual coach, for lack of a better term, by biofeedback hardware that the client can use in the home or by remote coaching using a network connection. This provides the capability of effectively incorporating the biometrics from the biofeedback hardware into the “self-coached” wellness sessions. The results of the wellness sessions can be synchronously or asynchronously uploaded to a remote processor for record keeping, trend scoring, and analysis by a human wellness coach as necessary or desired.  
         [0016]     Referring now to  FIG. 1 ,  FIG. 1  shows a functional block diagram of a wellness system  100  arranged in accordance with the present invention. Wellness system  100  comprises a biofeedback sensor  102 , a biofeedback signal interface  104 , a local processor  106 , a local display  108 , a network  110 , a remote processor  112 , and a remote display  114 . Biofeedback sensor  102  is connected to biofeedback signal interface  104 . Although only a single biofeedback sensor  102  is shown for convenience, local processor  106  could support multiple sensors and multiple users as desired.  
         [0017]     Communication links  116  connect the various components of system  100 . Communication links  116  could be any type of conventional connections, which include, for example, cable wire connections, fiber optic connections, wireless connections, bus connections, and the like as are generally known in the art and will not be further explained herein.  
         [0018]     While only one local processor  106  is shown in  FIG. 1 , one of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that a number of local processors  106  could connect to remote processor  112  at any time. Further, local processor  106  and remote processor  112  could be single units as shown or a series of interconnected processors as a matter of design choice.  
         [0019]     Local processor  106  and remote processor  112  can be any conventional processor, such as a desktop computer, laptop computer, server, PDA, cellular telephone, handheld computer, electronic game, conventional game platform, or the like, capable of connecting to network  110 . Network  110  connecting local processor  106  and remote processor  112  could be any type of network such as a LAN, WAN, WLAN, intranet, Internet, World Wide Web, Ethernet, or the like. Using a web browser of the like to connecting multiple processors over a network to share data and/or resources is well known in the art and will not be specifically explained herein except to the extent necessary to explain the present invention.  
         [0020]     Biofeedback sensor  102  could be, for example, a plurality of ring type sensors capable of fitting on the fingers of students. For example, two sensors may measure skin impedance. Measuring skin impedance provides an epidural skin response (also known as EDR or GSR) that is a useful indicator of, for example, the stress level of the student. Epidural skin response sensors are well known in the art and useful for devices, such as, lie detectors. Another sensor may be an infrared senor that may measure the student&#39;s heart rate. Infrared sensors of this sort are also well known in the art. Measuring the player&#39;s heartbeat can be useful in determining a variable heart rate. The variable heart rate could be useful in determining, for example, a coherence of the client&#39;s sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system. While three sensors to determine two biometric values have been described, other combinations of sensors and other biometrics are possible. For example, biometrics could be measured for blood press, EKGs, EEGs, brain waves, blood oxygen levels, respiratory rates, or the like. Also, the wellness tool could be based on one or more biometric values measured using one or more biometric sensor. In other words, the combination of sensors and biometrics is a matter of design choice.  
         [0021]     Biofeedback signal interface  104  converts the biometric values measured by biofeedback sensor and converts the biometric values into signals usable by local processor  106 . Biofeedback signal interface  104  is shown as a separate component for convenience, but could be incorporated into biofeedback sensor  102  or local processor  106  as a matter of design choice.  
         [0022]      FIG. 2  shows a flowchart  200  illustrative of using system  100  as a wellness tool. First, using local processor  106 , a student connects to remote processor  112  over the network  110 , step  202 . Local processor  106  could use a conventional web browser to connect with remote processor  112 , or local processor  106  could execute specialized code to connect with remote processor  112 . Once connected, the student optionally logs into a wellness program, step  204 . Establishing an account facilitates maintaining records of the student&#39;s progress and billing, but logging in is not required for operation of system  100 .  
         [0023]     While a single wellness program is possible, it is envisioned that the student will be presented with a number of menu options for various wellness coaching categories, step  206 . The student would select the option desired, such as, for example, a stress reduction session, step  208 . A series of multimedia events would then be delivered to the student over network  110 , step  210 . The events could be batch loaded onto local processor  106  that would execute the program, streamed from processor  112  to processor  106 , or using any conventional data transfer technology. Whether the actual exercise is run on processor  106 , processor  112 , or a combination thereof is a matter of design choice. Optionally, a tutorial or other instructional multimedia sequence could be used to instruct the student on the goals of the exercise and the biometric technique to be used, step  212 . Further, while connection to remote processor  112  may be useful for record keeping, the actual software code for the wellness programs could be loaded on local processor  106  using conventional multimedia files, such as magnetic disks, optical disks, CDs, DVDs, or the like. Thus, instead of streaming or downloading multimedia files from remote processor  112  over network  110 , multimedia files could be loaded locally using conventional techniques.  
         [0024]     Once the exercise is selected and running, input from biofeedback sensor  102  is used by the processor (local processor  106  or remote processor  112 ) to monitor the student&#39;s biometrics, step  214 . Based on the biofeedback signal, the multimedia series of events may be modified and displayed to the student, step  216 . For example, if the multimedia event is related to stress reduction, and the goal is a calm sea, local display  108  may display a rough sea with lightening storm to indicate a relatively higher stress. As the biofeedback signal indicates the student entering a relatively lower stress level, the multimedia event may start displaying calmer seas and a drizzle. Other multimedia events could be used comprising images, audio, video or a combination thereof. The multimedia event(s) may include helpful options as known in the art, such as, for example, readme files, pull down menus, voice instructions, hyperlinks (internal and external links), videos, other graphics or audio, or the like, and combinations thereof. The exercise could continue until complete or the student interrupts the exercise, at which time the student may be given the option to save current progress, step  218 , terminate the session, step  220 , or return to the menu to select another option, step  206 .  
         [0025]     Referring to  FIG. 3 , a graphical user interface (GUI)  300  is provided to student at the menu selection screen. GUI  300  may provide a menu for stress reduction option  302 , a visualizations for good health option  304 , a high-performance inducers option  306 , meditative options  308 , breathing options  310 , and personal counseling option  312  (which will be explained below). These, less, or other options are of course possible with the above being exemplary and non-limiting. GUI  300  could provide, as desired, other information as well, such as student accounting formation  314 , student progress or score information  316 , student records information, etc.  
         [0026]      FIG. 4  is illustrates a flowchart  400  exemplary of a method by which a student at local processor  106  may receive personal counseling from a coach at remote processor  112 . First, a communication link is established between local processor  106  and remote processor  112 , step  402 . Biometric information of the student is obtained by biofeedback sensor  102 , step  404 , and sent to remote processor  112  for display on remote display  114  such that the coach can view the biometric information, step  406 . Biometrics could be similarly displayed on local display  108 . The coach reviews the biometric information and provides feedback to local processor  106 , step  408 . The feedback could be transferred to local processor using any conventional technology, such as, a conventional chat room, email, instant messaging, or the like, conventional voice technology of the network, such as, VoIP or the like. Alternatively to establishing a connection via processor  112  and network  110  to processor  106 , the coach could connect to the student using a conventional telephone connection. Referring back to  FIG. 1 , a remote telephone  120  could be connected to a local telephone  122  conventional telephone network  124 , such as a conventional POTS system or a cellular system. In this case, part of the display for the coach would likely include a telephone number at which the student can be reached.  
         [0027]     Generally, using the personal counseling session could be similar to the methodology provided by flowchart  200 . With the personal coach, however, the coach could monitor biometrics and provide feedback via, an email, a text message, or a voice response (whether over a telephone or using voice synthesis technology via the computer).  
         [0028]     While the invention has been particularly shown and described with reference to an embodiment thereof, it will be understood by those skilled in the art that various other changes in the form and details may be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention.