Abstract:
A multimedia system and method provide self-improvement guidance in health, education, or safety. The user receives content material related to self-improvement, tracking of self-improvement behaviors, alerts to potential health dangers, and help information. A variety of games and puzzles guide and motivate the user through an educational process where the user&#39;s responses affect the sequencing of the testing. The user&#39;s interactions with the system are recorded and summarized.

Description:
BACKGROUND 
     1. Field of the Invention 
     The present invention is directed to programs for improving the lifestyle of consumers through medical, safety, and health education; and more particularly, to a system and process for providing health information and assistance, in an entertaining manner, through online gaming. 
     2. Description of the Related Art 
     Most members of the general public would benefit from a better overall understanding of health and medicine. With adequate health education, patients are able to maintain a healthy lifestyle and deal more effectively with diseases and illnesses. Presently, print literature, books, magazines, and online health websites provide the consumer with information on a variety of health topics and issues. Nevertheless, many individuals remain uninformed and continue to lead unhealthy lifestyles characterized by obesity, drug addiction, smoking and unsafe driving practices. 
     Patients need to be motivated and supported, in a manner which is psychologically appealing, to achieve better medical management, safety, and health maintenance. There exists a need for an interactive, multimedia, entertaining system and method that will provide effective health education by creating enthusiasm for self-instruction. Such a gaming system must ensure learning by rewarding correct responses and providing further instruction when learning has not taken place. To create maximum motivation, there exists a need for games of this kind which appeal to specific demographic groups. 
     Today&#39;s patient is also an involved patient so there exists a need for information about the causes and treatments of illness as well as the resources for obtaining additional information and coping with the emotional and logistical problems illness brings. Today&#39;s consumer is tech-savvy and demands speed, convenience and ease-of-use in the consumer&#39;s daily activities. Accordingly, there remains a need for a system that can provide health and safety information on-the-go, in a portable manner, and be effectively integrated with the consumer&#39;s other technology products. 
     In addition to requiring convenience, the consumer can only succeed in achieving a healthier lifestyle when the consumer is able to track the consumer&#39;s personal progress toward health goals. As the number of people with chronic conditions, such as diabetes, high blood pressure and obesity rises, there is an ever-increasing need for a system and procedure to store the individual&#39;s history of blood glucose levels, body fat, salt intake, and the like. Likewise, individuals need to track if they are making progress towards personal goals such as weight loss, lowered cholesterol, and increased bone mass. 
     As the population continues to age, the ability to track medications, dosages, contra-indications to medications, and refill expiration is an ever-increasing requirement. There is a need for children of the elderly to be able to monitor their parents&#39; compliance with medication regimes, as dementia and ill-health begin to affect their parents&#39; mental abilities. There is also a need for a system which will alert the patient, or a concerned relative, if a potentially dangerous medical condition exists. 
     With the increasing bureaucratization of health care, patients need assistance when interfacing with the insurance community. There is a need for a system which will help patients complete insurance forms correctly, make correct decisions regarding insurance, and understand how to proceed with an insurance claim. There is a general need to supply a two-way contact process for patients regarding today&#39;s complex health care issues. 
     There is also a need to better understand how the general public deals with health and safety improvement and why attempts at living a healthy lifestyle are often unsuccessful. Toward this end, a system for recording and summarizing the individual&#39;s efforts toward achieving a health benefit is necessary. Presently, there is no single system or method which provides the above-mentioned needs in a manner which the public will realistically embrace. 
     SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
     The present invention discloses a system and method for providing a user with self-improvement guidance in health, education, or safety wherein a gaming portion: 1) tests the user&#39;s knowledge of the content material; 2) the user&#39;s responses to the test questions determine the sequence of the game; and 3) when a response is incorrect, the user is continually presented with content material until the user answers the question correctly. A monitoring feature tracks the user&#39;s self-improvement behavior, so that progress toward self-improvement can be evaluated. An alerting feature alerts the user to problem behaviors revealed by the monitoring feature. An educating feature provides content material and sources for identifying additional content. An interactive feature provides the user with a variety of helpful information through a variety of media for maximum user convenience. The information developed by the system is memorialized by a recording feature for recording the user&#39;s interactions with the system and success with improvement. 
    
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
       The invention will be more fully understood and further advantages will become apparent when reference is made to the following detailed description of the preferred embodiments of the invention and the accompanying drawings, in which like numerals refer to like parts, and in which: 
         FIG. 1  is a block diagram of the present invention illustrating the flow of the system; 
         FIG. 2  is a diagram of the system of the present invention. 
         FIG. 3  is a block diagram illustrating the method of the present invention. 
         FIGS. 4A-4V  are exemplary screen shots illustrating the gaming portion of the present invention. 
     
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION 
     It is to be understood that the figures and descriptions of the present invention have been simplified to illustrate elements that are relevant for a clear understanding of the present invention, while eliminating, for purposes of clarity, many other elements found in a typical multimedia system. Those of ordinary skill in the art will recognize that other elements are desirable and/or required in order to implement the present invention. However, because such elements are well known in the art, and because they do not facilitate a better understanding of the present invention, a discussion of such elements is not provided herein. 
       FIG. 1  is a diagram of the information flow of the present invention indicating the components of the system and how information passes between each component. The invention, which is especially suited for use by the general public, comprises a multimedia system and process for medical, safety, and health improvements. The system incorporates psychological principles into the structure of gaming to educate, support, and motivate participants to improve their safety, medical management, and health maintenance. While print information and websites provide the public with information on a variety of health topics and issues, they lack the motivating features and entertainment value of the present invention. The current obesity epidemic, the number of smokers, and the prevalence of high blood pressure speak to the need for a system, which can successfully engage the public in pursuing self-improvement. 
     The educating portion  20  provides both general and specific content information on topics related to health, medicine and safety. So, for example the educating portion  20  provides information on specific diseases such as diabetes, its causes, symptoms, and treatments as well as where to find additional helpful information. The educating portion also provides very specific information, such as how to measure blood glucose levels, body mass index, or pulse rate. Furthermore, the educating portion  20  also discusses more general topics such as weight loss, and how to lower blood pressure and cholesterol. 
     The monitoring portion  22  monitors the user&#39;s compliance with standard health guidelines, described in the educating portion  20 ,  35 . These guidelines include, for example, following a recommended diet, moderating alcohol intake, observing medical contra-indications, and exercising daily. The user selects the guidelines the user wishes to have monitored and inputs the user&#39;s standard physiological measures of wellness, such as weight and blood pressure. The monitoring portion  22  tracks the user&#39;s progress towards health goals the user identifies, such as achieving weight loss or maintaining blood glucose levels. The monitoring portion further tracks information such as whether the patient is taking the correct medication dosage, if medical appointments have been kept, and whether a refill on a prescription is needed. The user manually inputs and updates information such as medication dose taken, blood glucose level, weight etc. to the monitoring portion  22  so that progress toward wellness can be tracked based on divergence from the baseline inputs. Alternatively, such data may be input directly from devices which generate physiological measurements such as a peak flow meter or ECG, for example, or from devices that record dispensing a dose of medication. Children of aged parents and others are able to obtain access to the monitoring portion  22  to help ensure that guidelines are being followed. 
     The monitoring portion  22  provides information to the alerting portion  24 ,  27  so that the user can be notified when a potentially dangerous situation exists. The monitoring portion draws upon standard medication contraindications, associated with the drug prescription information the user has entered, as well as physiological danger measures, reflected in standard guidelines such as the blood pressure range chart. So, for example, if blood levels of glucose or pulse rate are too high, the user or other relatives will be notified. Similarly, if the user is engaging in an unsafe behavior, such as taking two drugs which interact dangerously or failing to complete a prescribed dosage of medication, an alert is issued. 
     The gaming portion  26  interacts with the educating portion  20 ,  31 ,  37  to provide motivational activities, such as games and puzzles, containing content relevant to medical management, safety, and health maintenance. The gaming portion is delivered over a variety of media for maximum user convenience, and designed to make health fun and enhance the attention, learning, and motivation of participants. The gaming portion comprises games and puzzles targeted to work most effectively with a variety of demographic groups such as children, pre-teens, seniors, sports enthusiasts, special needs groups, or highly mobile individuals. An algorithm is employed to automatically match the user&#39;s demographics with the appropriate games or the user selects the games of interest. Games may take the form of mazes, shooting games, assembly and/or matching games, and the like. 
     Basic psychological principles of learning are employed, in a programmed instruction format, to provide participants with health and medical information in an easy-to-acquire and understand process. Game format includes multiple choice questions wherein the user&#39;s answer choice directly impacts the outcome and flow of the game. To excel at a game, the user must answer all the questions correctly. 
     The interactive portion  28  communicates with the educating portion  20  to connect the user  23 ,  21 , via hyperlinks, with websites containing further information on health and safety topics. Examples include links to key websites such as the American Diabetes Association, a specific drug website, a specific pharmaceutical website and the like. The gaming portion  26  also communicates  29  with the interactive portion  28  so that the user may search the Web for information necessary to complete a game. Through the interactive portion  28 , the user is provided with a two-way contact process to secure information or assistance. This includes live support directed at a variety of health issues including insurance claims assistance, prescription refill, or physician referral. In addition, the interactive portion includes a search feature enabling the user to search the system or the Web. Expanded cell phone information sources will also become part of the easily linked information. 
     The information recording portion  30  records information  33  generated by the monitoring portion  22 , alerting portion  24 , gaming portion  26 , and interactive portion  28 . This information includes personal information input by the user through the monitoring portion  22  such as name, address, age, gender, and physician. It also includes information acquired from the monitoring portion  22  such as prescription numbers, dosages, effects of medication the user has taken, health goals, and the like. It further includes a record of the user&#39;s gaming activities, acquired from the gaming portion  26  indicating the user&#39;s level of health knowledge. It further includes a record of the user&#39;s help requests, generated by the interactive portion  28 , indicating content areas of interest to the user. It also includes health and safety problems the user has experienced as recorded by the alerting portion  24 . The information recording portion  30  summarizes this information, gathered from the participation of its users, and makes this information available as a service to assist health, safety and medical providers, such as pharmaceutical companies, specific disease foundations, security services, and public and private support agencies. 
       FIG. 2  is a diagram of the system of the present invention. The user interacts with the system server  40  using a communication device such as a cell phone  44 . Accordingly, participation in the gaming portion  26  of the system, or the interactive portion of the system  28 , requires no special effort on the user&#39;s part or deviation from normal every-day routine. Young people, who use phones for text messaging and a variety of multimedia applications are particularly at home with the system, which uses the phone&#39;s key pad to interact with the gaming portion. Likewise, sports enthusiasts and other highly mobile individuals find it easy to update their information, using the monitoring portion  22 . 
     As an alternative communication device  44 , the system uses a personal digital assistant, computer, kiosk, or other wired or wireless standard communication device. The systems server  40  may be a remote computer, a local computer, a chip installed within the communication device, or other digital processing software or hardware. The storage medium, used by the information recording portion  30 , may be local or remote and take the form of disk, flash memory, tape, cartridge, or any other standard storage media. The system content information and recorded information may be stored remotely on a website  46 . 
     The user may interact with the server  40  and website  46  in a wired or wireless fashion. Alerts from the alerting portion  24  and information from the educating portion  20  may likewise be obtained from local or remote storage. The system may exist stand-alone or networked with other devices. 
       FIG. 3  displays the method of the present invention. In step  50 , the user inputs personal data such as name, gender, age, physician, prescription numbers, medical or health conditions, insurance company, relatives to be alerted in the event of health crises, and the like. In step  52 , the user inputs the lifestyle behaviors, which the user would like to track. These can include, for example, calories consumed, weight, blood glucose level, body mass index and bone density. The user also inputs required medication doses or this information is obtained automatically from the prescription information. 
     In step  54 , the user views content material related to medical care, health and safety. This material may take the form of a website or be incorporated into a game. In step  56 , the user plays a game, which includes multiple choice questions on health and safety topics, wherein the user&#39;s answer choice directly impacts the outcome and flow of the game. The user is presented with content material, provided by step  54 , and then responds to questions which test the user&#39;s knowledge and understanding of the material presented. The greater the number of questions the user answers correctly on the first try, the higher the user&#39;s score and the more quickly the user finishes the game. The games presented will be designed to appeal to the user&#39;s demographic profile. 
     In step  58 , the user may choose to receive help and assistance. Help takes the form of website FAQs, real-time interaction with a help desk representative, questions emailed, context-sensitive help accessible through a programmed key, and other standard help formats. In step  60 , the user may choose to check reminders related to the user&#39;s help behaviors. For example, the user may be reminded to refill a prescription, take a medication, or submit an insurance form. In step  62  the user views alerts notifying the user of potentially dangerous medical or safety situations. For example, the user may have taken an incorrect dosage, be taking two drugs which interact dangerously or have recorded alcohol intake, when this is contraindicated based on the user&#39;s medication regime. The alerts appear automatically but the user may also view alerts electively, at any time, as well as deactivate the alert feature. The user may also grant permission to a third party, such as a relative, to participate in viewing the alerts. 
     In step  64 , the user inputs physiological measures, which reflect the results of medication taken or changes in lifestyle. For example, if the user has been exercising, the user updates the user&#39;s weight or blood pressure, for example, to measure the effects of this wellness behavior. If the user suffers from a medical condition, such as diabetes, the user inputs the user&#39;s glucose level. An analysis of the results input, in step  64 , are then viewed in step  66 . The system records information using the information recording portion  30  so the user can view the history of the user&#39;s progress toward wellness. So, for example, the user can view the user&#39;s glucose levels, for every day in the past month, weight gain, over the past six months and so on. In step  68 , the information is summarized and made available to health, safety and medical providers. This information provides a highly detailed view of the wellness behavior of consumers, which would not otherwise be readily available. 
       FIGS. 4A-4V  are sample screen shots, illustrating an example of the game format, which the user views via the gaming portion  26 . Formats follow the general pattern of: 1) presenting a myth about a disease or condition; 2) providing information to dispel the myth; 3) testing the user to determine whether the user has understood and assimilated the information; 4) if the user answers correctly, notifying the user and moving to the next topic; 5) if the user answers incorrectly, notifying the user and repeating the information already provided to dispel the myth; and 6) retesting the user. Through this programmed learning format, which provides instant feedback, the user is motivated to continue learning the material. The text screens of the Figures would be included in images of rooms in a house, for example, with game and learning progress shown by advancing through the house and eventually out of it.