Mobile phones as medical devices in mental disorder treatment: an overview (original) (raw)
Free related PDFsRelated papers
Mobile psychiatry: Personalised Ambient Monitoring for the mentally ill
2011
Mental health has long been a neglected problem in global healthcare. The social and economic impacts of conditions affecting the mind are still underestimated. However, in recent years it is becoming more apparent that mental disorders are a growing global concern that is not to be trivialised. Considering the rising burden of psychiatric illnesses, there is a necessity of developing novel services and researching effective means of providing interventions to sufferers. Such novel services could include technology-based solutions already used in other healthcare applications but are yet to make their way into standard psychiatric practice. This thesis presents a study on how pervasive technology can be utilised to devise an “early warning” system for patients with bipolar disorder. The system, containing wearable and environmental sensors, would collect behavioural data and use it to inform the user about subtle changes that might indicate an upcoming episode. To test the feasibili...
Free PDF
Application of Smartphone Technology in the Management and Treatment of Mental Illnesses
2011
Abstract: Background: Mental illness continues to be a significant Public Health problem and the innovative use of technology to improve the treatment of mental illnesses holds great public health relevance. Over the past decade telecommunications technology has been used to increase access to and improve the quality of mental health care. There is current evidence that the use of landline and cellular telephones, computer-assisted therapy, and videoconferencing can be effective in improving treatment outcomes. Smartphones, as the newest development in communications technology, offer a new opportunity to improve mental health care through their versatile nature to perform a variety of functions. Methods: A critical literature review was performed to examine the potential of smartphones to increase access to mental health care, reduce barriers to care, and improve patient treatment outcomes. The review was performed by searching several electronic databases using a combination of ke...
Free PDF
Free PDF
Free PDF
Towards personalised ambient monitoring of mental health via mobile technologies
Technology and health care : official journal of the European Society for Engineering and Medicine, 2010
Managing bipolar disorder is an important health issue that can strongly affect the patient's quality of life during occurrences of depressive or manic episodes and is therefore a growing burden to healthcare systems. A widely practised method of monitoring the course of the disorder is by mood and general mental health questionnaires, which are nowadays often implemented on mobile electronic devices.Detecting changes to daily routine and behaviour is of crucial importance as they can be symptomatic of an ongoing episode, or in the case of an external cause, may trigger such an episode.Current mobile phones and geospatial technology provide a means of monitoring aspects of daily routine and lifestyle which may be valuable in facilitating self-management of the condition.This manuscript introduces a methodology for analysing data obtained from a simple wearable system based on a mid-range mobile phone, along with trial results from a control group of three participants with no hi...
Free PDF
Experimental analysis of a mobile health system for mood disorders
IEEE Transactions on Information Technology in Biomedicine, 2010
Depression is one of the leading causes of disability. Methods are needed to quantitatively classify emotions in order to better understand and treat mood disorders. This research proposes techniques to improve communication in body sensor network (BSN) that gathers data on the affective states of the patient. These BSNs can continuously monitor, discretely quantify, and classify a patient's depressive states. In addition, data on the patient's lifestyle can be correlated with his/her physiological conditions to identify how various stimuli trigger symptoms. This continuous stream of data is an improvement over a snapshot of localized symptoms that a doctor often collects during a medical examination. Our research first quantifies how the body interferes with communication in a BSN and detects a pattern between the line of sight of an embedded device and its reception rate. Then, a mathematical model of the data using linear programming techniques determines the optimal placement and number of sensors in a BSN to improve communication. Experimental results show that the optimal placement of embedded devices can reduce power cost up to 27% and reduce hardware costs up to 47%. This research brings researchers a step closer to continuous, real-time systemic monitoring that will allow one to analyze the dynamic human physiology and understand, diagnosis, and treat mood disorders.
Free PDF
International Journal of Bipolar Disorders
There has been increasing interest in the use of smartphone applications (apps) and other consumer technology in mental health care for a number of years. However, the vision of data from apps seamlessly returned to, and integrated in, the electronic medical record (EMR) to assist both psychiatrists and patients has not been widely achieved, due in part to complex issues involved in the use of smartphone and other consumer technology in psychiatry. These issues include consumer technology usage, clinical utility, commercialization, and evolving consumer technology. Technological, legal and commercial issues, as well as medical issues, will determine the role of consumer technology in psychiatry. Recommendations for a more productive direction for the use of consumer technology in psychiatry are provided.
Free PDF
Studying Behavioral Changes in Patients with Clinical Depression via Mobile Phone Sensing
There is a growing number of everyday practices that involve the use of the mobile phone like staying in touch with others, looking for help, reading news, coordinating everyday activities via calendars, reminders, or to-do lists. Modern mobile phones include sensors that can be used for inferring such be-havioral information. In this work, we study changes in behavior of seven patients diagnosed with clinical depression, who were being subject to psychological intervention by professional psychologists. We present an analysis derived from mobile phones sensors aimed at studying mobility, interpersonal interactions , and mobile phone usage. Our results show that, as the patients' conditions improved, they moved around the city more, called more frequently, albeit some of them shorter calls, and were using their phones more.
Free PDF
Mobile Sensing and Support for People With Depression: A Pilot Trial in the Wild
JMIR mHealth and uHealth, 2016
Depression is a burdensome, recurring mental health disorder with high prevalence. Even in developed countries, patients have to wait for several months to receive treatment. In many parts of the world there is only one mental health professional for over 200 people. Smartphones are ubiquitous and have a large complement of sensors that can potentially be useful in monitoring behavioral patterns that might be indicative of depressive symptoms and providing context-sensitive intervention support. The objective of this study is 2-fold, first to explore the detection of daily-life behavior based on sensor information to identify subjects with a clinically meaningful depression level, second to explore the potential of context sensitive intervention delivery to provide in-situ support for people with depressive symptoms. A total of 126 adults (age 20-57) were recruited to use the smartphone app Mobile Sensing and Support (MOSS), collecting context-sensitive sensor information and provid...
Free PDF
Free PDF
