Tag: mobile health

A new mobile app could change how patients with mental illnesses are treated and monitored.

A group of scientists from Tel Aviv University and Dr. Uri Nevo, have developed a mobile technology system that may potentially transform psychiatric care because it can detect changes in a patient’s behavioral patterns and can transmit these changes in real time to doctors, which could help doctors to improve how they monitor their patients and provide them with better treatment by enabling clinicians to enhance their efficacy and response times.

The app also gives patients independence from family members, doctors and hospitals.

Being able to facilitate patient observation via a mobile phone enables patience to have greater independence and makes it easier for them to keep track of their behavior. According to Dr. Nevo, “The diagnosis of mental health disease is based only on behavioral patterns.” He added that “In some cases, a patient is discharged from the hospital into a vacuum, with no idea how to monitor his or her new state of mind.”

Dr. Nevo explained that since the vast majority of people own smartphones in this day and age, it made sense to use mobile technology as a way to monitor patterns in daily behavior. He went on to say that how much a person talks, texts, the number of places they visit, when they go to sleep and for how long they sleep, are all signs of mental health and they help to provide clinicians with important insights into their patients, which could help them diagnose a disorder before it becomes “full-blown”.

The new mobile technology was used in two clinical trials.

Researches carried out two clinical trials and in both trials there were 20 patients with schizoaffective, bipolar, or unipolar/depressive disorders and 20 other healthy participants. All 40 participants had the application installed on their smartphones.

For six months, the app collected information from the phones of the participants and sent the data to computers that were equipped with advanced algorithms that evaluated the data to find alterations in the participant’s communication, sleep, vocal patterns and mobility. In addition, a visualization system showed a summary of the acquired information to psychiatrists, which provided them with immediate insight into their patient’s behavioral trends.

The psychiatrists that took part in the trials said that the mobile technology system has had a positive effect on how they interact with their patients and gives them a practical and objective view into their patient’s everyday routine. Dr. Nevo commented that they are still a long way off from proving that the application is effective, but that tools such as these are vital for improving psychiatric care.

This mobile health tool helps people to be able to confront their anxieties and their fears.

A new self-help tool has now been developed by a team of psychologists, physicists, and developers, which uses augmented reality over a mobile health platform, with the goal of helping users to be able to treat their phobias and overcome their anxieties.

The Phobious mobile app is a part of the overall DreamIt Health Baltimore’s inaugural class.

The team came up with tools that can be used over a smartphone, and the consumer product – which includes both a mobile app that will work on Android or iPhone, and a pair of augmented reality goggles – will be launched in September. Baltimore came upon the Phobious mhealth technology via Barcelona.

This augmented reality technology will include both a consumer facing tool and tracking for doctors.

This allows the program to be used both as a self-help tool as well as a way for clinicians to be able to track the progress of their patients. That second element is still under development. That said, the consumer facing platform is well under way. The primary focus of that element will be specifically on phobias, ranging from spiders and insects to needles and even public speaking.

The intention of the company is to market it as a self help tool, but without any promises or guarantees that it can be used as a cure in treating these extreme fears. That said, it does have every intention to pursue FDA clearance in the United States, as well as a CE Mark from regulators in the E.U. This will allow it to be sold as a device that can help to treat issues related to anxiety disorders and post traumatic stress disorders (PTSDs).

Previous research form the military has shown that virtual reality has been able to generate some success when treating these types of conditions.

Dani Roig, the co-founder of Phobious, is one of the company’s two physicists who has been struggling with a fear of flying. He explained that companies attempting to come up with tools based on virtual reality has typically proven to be too expensive and challenging for broadscale adoption. However, in the form of an mhealth tool using augmented reality, the product becomes much more affordable and achievable.