STORYUP, INC. — Department of Defense SBIR Phase I: AF203-CSO1

Description

Up to 20% who served in OIF or OEF have PTSD in a given year, according to the VA’s National PTSD Center. Up to 12% of Gulf War Veterans have PTSD in a given year. 30% of Vietnam Veterans have had PTSD in their lifetime. Stress is a $300 billion-dollar people and profit killer. It causes 60% of all illness and disease and according to the WHO, it is the 21st Century epidemic. Imagine if a sniper was killing 7300 Veterans each year and the armor used to protect them was a less effective kind of metal, this is a similar impact as what’s happening now with traditional PTS treatments that use audio only or less effective 2D stress management materials.  In addition, it is DoD policy, under DOD INSTRUCTION 6490.16 DEFENSE SUICIDE PREVENTION PROGRAM, that the DoD: a) Make substantial efforts to reduce suicide and b) Foster a command climate that: (1) Encourages personnel to seek help and build resilience. (2) Increases awareness about behavioral healthcare and reduces the stigma for personnel who seek behavioral healthcare.  Healium can help in this strategic initiative.   Each day, 125 people take their own lives. Anxiety is the cause of 60% of all illness and disease and up to 90% of doctor visits. Even before the COVID pandemic, stress was the 21st Century epidemic according to the World Health Organization. Stress costs US businesses about $300B each year due to absenteeism, reduced productivity,  lack of focus,  and turnover. While meditation helps,  it takes time to see results. How are you supposed to learn how to control your stress if you can’t see and interact with it?  Healium allows you to not just track biometric data from wearables but interact with it as a 3D object.   Healium is the world’s first virtual and augmented reality platform powered by a brain-computer interface and the user’s heart rate via consumer wearables. The brain believes what it sees as 65% of the population are visual learners. But if your eyes are closed or you’re only listening to audio-only stress management programs, you’re only retaining a portion of that information. Healium opens the eyes of the user and allows them to see their emotions live streamed next to virtual and augmented reality content. This is not exposure therapy. These are peaceful scenes. Healium has an issued patent 15/862,478 for using EEG brain patterns to modify VR, AR, or mixed reality content in a therapeutic manner.