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New Startup By a Trio of Doctors Uses Phone App To Collect Measures of People's Cognition and Emotional Health and Attempts To Detect Signs of Depression (technologyreview.com)
A startup founded in Palo Alto, California, by a trio of doctors, including the former director of the US National Institute of Mental Health, is trying to prove that our obsession with the technology in our pockets can help treat some of today's most intractable medical problems: depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, and substance abuse. MIT Technology Review: Mindstrong Health is using a smartphone app to collect measures of people's cognition and emotional health as indicated by how they use their phones. Once a patient installs Mindstrong's app, it monitors things like the way the person types, taps, and scrolls while using other apps. This data is encrypted and analyzed remotely using machine learning, and the results are shared with the patient and the patient's medical provider.
The seemingly mundane minutiae of how you interact with your phone offers surprisingly important clues to your mental health, according to Mindstrong's research -- revealing, for example, a relapse of depression. With details gleaned from the app, Mindstrong says, a patient's doctor or other care manager gets an alert when something may be amiss and can then check in with the patient by sending a message through the app (patients, too, can use it to message their care provider).
The seemingly mundane minutiae of how you interact with your phone offers surprisingly important clues to your mental health, according to Mindstrong's research -- revealing, for example, a relapse of depression. With details gleaned from the app, Mindstrong says, a patient's doctor or other care manager gets an alert when something may be amiss and can then check in with the patient by sending a message through the app (patients, too, can use it to message their care provider).
How soon until a bureaucrat uses this data to determine that you shouldn't be permitted to own a firearm or are not fit to be a parent.
Just what depressives need, a disconnected app experience. People need to get used to the idea an app isn't the be all and end all of solutions to problems. Seems like a cover to slurp up data if you ask me, not that anyone did.
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
Bought a dual SIM phone.
Have gnu, will travel.
The way I imagine the app working is that it pokes at you more and more with questions until the point you throw the phone, at which point it uses force measurement to determine level of anger.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Maybe they could co-brand with Kleenex?
"I see your depression score is above 21, click here to order a box of tissue."
-Styopa
"treat some of today's most intractable medical problems: "
'Intractable' literally means 'untreatable'.
Couldn't agree more. Hey doc, I'm depressed because I only have fake friends and an AI to talk to.
Go out and play, like mom of 40 years ago told you to do.