Projects
Cost-effectiveness of a smartphone Application for Tinnitus Treatment: The CATT trial University of Antwerp
Assessment & Training of Cognitive Performance in Elderly Life via Meaninful Play KU Leuven
SLOW, DEEP BREATHING TO DAMPEN PAIN: EVALUATING THE EFFICACY AND INVESTIGATING THE UNDERLYING PSYCHOPHYSIOLOGICAL MECHANISMS KU Leuven
Pain is the most common symptom for which people seek medical care. Chronic pain is common worldwide, and often not treated adequately, thereby leading to reduced quality of life and high healthcare costs. Recently, there has been increasing attention toward the complexity and biopsychosocial nature of pain, and the need for multidisciplinary pain management has been increasingly acknowledged. Various mind-body interventions are being used ...
Phila: Working out a trauma together with physical activity KU Leuven
Physical activity (PA) is an interesting add-on treatment in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The efficacy of PA for PTSD in daily life, in particular in first-responders remains unknown. There is a need for more culturesensitive efficacy and effectiveness research and a need to investigate locally adapted behavioural strategies that could improve adherence towards daily life PA. A first aim is to explore motives and barriers for PA ...
Preparing children at home for MR scanning with a cosmonautic virtual reality fairy tale KU Leuven
The current standard clinical practice in most hospitals is to sedate young children when they need to undergo a Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scan, as a way to avoid anxiety, or errors in the scan caused by movement. The goal of the COSMO@HOME project is to create a smartphone app that lets children and their parents prepare at home for an upcoming scan. This app will consist of videos, training exercises, and virtual reality (VR) modules ...
Enhancing Physical activity in Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease to achieve sustainable benefits in extrapulmonary consequences of COPD. KU Leuven
Until recently pulmonary rehabilitation programs have focused on enhancing exercise capacity, symptoms and health related quality of life in patients with COPD. Recently it has been shown that these programs unfortunately largely fail to change physical activity levels of patients to a clinically meaningful extent. Nevertheless such improvements are likely crucial to enhance long term outcomes of rehabilitation programs. We aim to develop and ...
From theory to practice. The development and evaluation of a resilience-enhancing intervention for pregnant women. KU Leuven
The perinatal period is considered a sensitive life-changing experience marked by significant and profound changes in biological, psychological, familial and social domains. Keeping a balance between these different domains may be challenging for (expectant) parents, putting them at greater risk of developing perinatal mental health problems. Maintaining resilience during pregnancy may be crucial for psychosocial adaptation to this ...
Implementation of ACT in Daily Life KU Leuven
Mental health problems constitute a major individual, family and public health concern, affecting up to 30% of the population. Yet, both pharmacological and psychological interventions only reach modest effect sizes. There is a need for new and better personalised interventions. In my ERC 'INTERACT' project, we adopted a mobile Health (mHealth) approach for the treatment of psychotic disorder. We developed ACT-DL (Acceptance and Commitment in ...
The effect of rhythmically synchronous multisensory stimulation on voluntary control of attention, during rehabilitation of patients with visual field deficits. KU Leuven
Brain injury, such as stroke, often causes a sudden disappearance of consciousness for as much as half of the visual field. From the literature we know that rehabilitation to encourage patients to orient attention to their new ‘blind spots’ can cause partial recovery. There is, however, a large gap between the level of exercises in clinical rehabilitation and fundamental research on the role of attention. For example, it is known that audio ...