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Summarizing current news and empirical literature related to digital health technologies
Eye on Innovation

Summarizing current news and empirical literature related to digital health technologies

The field of behavioral health and technology moves at a rapid pace. CTBH follows news and empirical publications and compiles references to and synopses of pieces describing cutting edge applications of technology in behavioral health.
Eye on Innovation
09/21/2023

Technology Fueled America’s Youth Mental Health Crisis, But It Can Help End It

Article Excerpt: Sian Leah Beilock is a cognitive scientist who is the new president of Dartmouth College, the first woman to hold that position since the school was founded in 1769. An expert in, among other things, the effect of stress on academic performance, she is starting her tenure by putting health and wellness at the center of her leadership agenda with a focus on the country’s youth mental health crisis…Substance abuse, which is both helping drive the mental health crisis and is drastically undertreated with nearly 90 percent of sufferers going without treatment, offers an example of the power of technology to provide clinical care in underserved areas or in cases in which stigmatization prevents people from seeking the help they need. Lisa Marsch and her team at the Dartmouth Center for Technology and Behavioral Health (CBTH) created and validated the first Food and Drug Administration-cleared digital therapeutic for the treatment of opioid addiction, which provides cognitive behavioral therapy interventions though the user’s digital device and has since helped roughly double rates of abstinence by lowering the threshold for access to treatment.

Full Article: https://tinyurl.com/4v4jkrwd

Article Source: The Washington Post

Posted in: Dissemination & Implementation, Emerging Technologies // Tagged: ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;
09/19/2023

Symposium Focuses on Digital Tech for Mental Health

Article Excerpt: Technology offers new avenues for mental health delivery. Digital record keeping, virtual consultations, wearables that monitor activity and well-being, mindfulness apps, and AI-based chatbots are just a few examples. But these advances have not been leveraged effectively enough, Cornell Tech Professor and HealthRhythms Co-Founder Tanzeem Choudhury said in a keynote talk Tuesday at the Digital Mental Health and AI Symposium organized by the Center for Technology and Behavioral Health. Choudhury explored the challenges that have forestalled digital mental health from delivering on some of its early promises and how to move the needle forward.

Full Article: https://tinyurl.com/ysvssb4s

Article Source: Dartmouth News

Posted in: Dissemination & Implementation // Tagged: ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;
09/14/2023

‘They Won’t Rip Telehealth Away’: Digital Behavioral Health Companies Prepare for Industry-Shaping DEA Decision

Article Excerpt: November is fast approaching, and with it comes the Drug Enforcement Administration’s (DEA) proposed rule on telehealth and controlled substance prescribing. After a six-month delay, the federal law enforcement and regulatory body will release regulations that will shape the future of telehealth within behavioral health in the post-COVID era. It also has the potential to redirect the evolution of telehealth in the behavioral health industry. Companies that exclusively or heavily focus on providing care via telehealth have had to prepare for the potential snapback to a regulatory environment where in-person exams were required before a telehealth provider could prescribe certain controlled substances.

Full Article: https://tinyurl.com/abd4vzmn

Article Source: Behavioral Health Business

Posted in: Regulation & Policy // Tagged: ; ; ; ; ; ; ;
09/08/2023

Symposium to Spotlight Digital Mental Health Technology

Article Excerpt: Experts in the field of digital mental health will gather at Dartmouth on Sept. 19 to discuss opportunities and challenges in developing innovative digital tools that can transform mental health care. President Sian Leah Beilock will deliver opening remarks to kick off the Digital Mental Health & AI Symposium organized by the Center for Technology and Behavioral Health at the Hanover Inn. “The Center for Technology and Behavioral Health is a leader in the science of digital health as applied to health behavior,” says CTBH Director Lisa Marsch. “We are excited to host this event with the Dartmouth community to highlight the opportunities for using digital health tools to promote mental health anytime and anywhere.”

Full Article: https://tinyurl.com/2kjjkb6t

Article Source: Dartmouth News

Posted in: Dissemination & Implementation // Tagged: ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;
09/06/2023

Technology Helps Bring Health Equity to Underserved Communities

Article Excerpt: Health equity, as defined by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, is the attainment of the highest level of health for all people. It requires concentrated efforts to eliminate health and healthcare disparities and, more than ever, technology has become a major tool in the process. “From my perspective, technology has a huge value to provide health equity,” says Albert Blankley, COO of Common Ground Health, a health research and planning organization for the nine county Finger Lakes region founded in 1974. The organization’s mission is to bring greater focus to community health issues via data analysis, resident engagement and solution implementation, via regional collaboration and partnerships.

Full Article: https://tinyurl.com/22zwb6am

Article Source: Rochester Business Journal

Posted in: Methodologies & Analytics // Tagged: ; ; ; ; ; ; ;
09/05/2023

Preventing mental illness in children that experienced maltreatment the efficacy of REThink online therapeutic game

David OA & Fodor LA. Preventing mental illness in children that experienced maltreatment the efficacy of REThink online therapeutic game. npj Digit. Med. 6, 106 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41746-023-00849-0

This article reports on a randomized controlled trial to test the efficacy of REThink, an online therapeutic game, compared to usual care in preventing mental illness in children who have experienced maltreatment. REThink was developed based on a transdiagnostic cognitive-behavioral therapy and has an action and adventure approach to learning and practicing therapeutic tasks. Each REThink level/session is completed weekly using a mobile device under the supervision of study staff. Children aged 8-12 years with self-reported maltreatment history (N=294) were recruited from schools. Participants completed pre- and post-intervention assessments measuring mental health, emotion regulation, and irrational cognitions. In the REThink group, 65% of the children completed all of the levels/sessions of the game and 18% dropped out from treatment. The REThink intervention arm was found to have a significantly lower level of emotional problems (d=0.42, p=0.001), mental health problems (d=0.35, p=0.007), maladaptive emotion regulation strategies (catastrophizing: d=0.41, p=0.002; self-blame: d=0.26, p=0.017) and irrational cognitions (d=0.54, p<0.001) compared to the control arm post-intervention. Additionally, children with higher maltreatment severity benefitted the most from the REThink game and children with lower parent attachment security benefited the least. Future research is needed to test the long-term efficacy of the REThink game.

Posted in: Cutting Edge Literature // Tagged: ; ; ; ;
08/31/2023

Breathe! The Shape-Shifting Ball That Supports Mental Health

Article Excerpt: A soft ball that ‘personifies’ breath, expanding and contracting in synchronicity with a person’s inhalations and exhalations, has been invented by a PhD student at the University of Bath. The ball is designed to support mental health, giving users a tangible representation of their breath to keep them focused and to help them regulate their emotions.
Alexz Farrall, the student in the Department of Computer Science who invented the device, said: “By giving breath physical form, the ball enhances self-awareness and engagement, fostering positive mental health outcomes.”

Full Article: Fhttps://tinyurl.com/4jst87va

Article Source: ScienceBlog

Posted in: Emerging Technologies // Tagged: ; ; ; ;
08/28/2023

Long-term participant retention and engagement patterns in an app and wearable-based multinational remote digital depression study

Zhang Y, Pratap A, Folarin AA, Sun S, Cummins N, Matcham F, Vairavan S, Dineley J, Ranjan Y, Rashid Z, Conde P, Stewart C, White KM, Oetzmann C, Ivan A, Lamers F, Siddi S, Rambla CH, Simblett S, Nica R, Mohr DC, Myin-Germeys I, Wykes T, Maria Haro J, Penninx BWJH, Annas P, Narayan VA, Hotopf M, Dobson RJB. (2023). Long-term participant retention and engagement patterns in an app and wearable-based multinational remote digital depression study. NPJ Digital Medicine, 6(1), 25–25. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41746-023-00749-3

This paper reported findings related to long-term participant retention and engagement in a large observational digital study for depression, using survey and passive sensor data collected via smartphones and Fitbit devices. Participants (N=614) were recruited from three sites in the United Kingdom, Spain and Netherlands. Data were collected for up to 2 years by the EU research program RADAR-MDD. The majority of participants (68%) remained engaged in the study after 43 weeks. Smartphone and Fitbit usage data showed 3 distinct engagement subgroups for each data stream (most engaged, medium engaged, and least engaged). The least engaged group tended to have the highest depression severity and took significantly longer to respond to survey notifications. The least engaged were on average 5 years younger than the most engaged group. Roughly 45% of participants who stopped completing surveys after 8 weeks continued to share Fitbit data (average of 42 weeks). Findings could inform the design of future digital health studies to enable equitable and balanced data collection from diverse populations.

Posted in: Cutting Edge Literature // Tagged: ; ; ; ; ;
08/22/2023

Researchers Developing Mixed Reality Naloxone Training to Combat Opioid Overdose Deaths

Article Excerpt: OSF Healthcare (OSF), a not-for-profit healthcare organization, has announced this week a new partnership with Illinois State University (ISU) and Southern Illinois University Carbondale (SIU) to utilize mixed-reality technology to create an immersive training program designed to help combat opioid overdose deaths. The partnership is based on the development of an Illinois Innovation Network-funded education project called Virtual Reality Embedded Naloxone Training (VENT). The work centers around the development of mixed-use or augmented reality (AR) education for an immersive, engaging approach to train people on how to administer naloxone — which serves as a safe and effective antidote for suspected opioid overdoses. OSF noted that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) made naloxone nasal spray available over the counter in March as part of a strategy that includes harm reduction through innovation and education.

Full Article: https://tinyurl.com/39b2rhn4

Article Source: Auganix

Posted in: Emerging Technologies // Tagged: ; ; ; ; ;