app

Study: Self-guided sleep app Sleepio, combined with standard care for depression and anxiety, delivers better outcomes than standard care alone

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Study backs ben­e­fit of insom­nia DTx Sleepio on men­tal health (pharmapho­rum):

The study – pub­lished in the jour­nal Behav­iour Research and Ther­a­py – test­ed the Sleepio app devel­oped by dig­i­tal health spe­cial­ist Big Health as an add-on to stan­dard NHS care for anx­i­ety and depres­sion under the improv­ing access to psy­cho­log­i­cal ther­a­pies (IAPT) policy.

Patients who signed up to use Sleepio – a six-week dig­i­tal cog­ni­tive behav­iour­al ther­a­py (CBT) course – achieved sig­nif­i­cant­ly bet­ter improve­ment in symp­toms com­pared to con­trols, with an IAPT recov­ery rate of near­ly 65% ver­sus 58% in the con­trol group. [Read more…] about Study: Self-guid­ed sleep app Sleepio, com­bined with stan­dard care for depres­sion and anx­i­ety, deliv­ers bet­ter out­comes than stan­dard care alone

Update: The latest research and noninvasive neurotechnologies for brain health and mental fitness

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Time for a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter!

1. Food for (non­par­ti­san) Thought: Should heads of state and can­di­dates to high office pass a cognitive/ men­tal fit­ness test?

2. A school psy­chol­o­gist shares good tips to sup­port our kids and, yes, man­age our own stress. Three Ss to reduce the stress of “home­school­ing” our kids: Sim­pli­fy, Struc­ture, Sup­port.

3. Wow. Mind­strong Health rais­es $100M to trans­form how we mea­sure and pro­mote men­tal health.

4. Great part­ner­ship! Kaiser Per­ma­nente offers Calm men­tal fit­ness app at no cost to mil­lions of mem­bers.

5. “Just as you can’t self-intro­spect to deter­mine your cho­les­terol, much of the high­est-val­ue infor­ma­tion about our­selves and each oth­er sits out­side our con­scious aware­ness.” — Bryan John­son, Founder and CEO of Ker­nel, as Ker­nel launch­es Neu­ro­science as a Ser­vice (NaaS) built on non-inva­sive brain record­ing tech­nol­o­gy.

6. Fas­ci­nat­ing con­ver­sa­tion on how and why “Prac­tice actu­al­ly changes the phys­i­cal­i­ty of your brain” — Q&A with Rick Han­son on Neu­rod­har­ma, brain sci­ence, per­son­al prac­tice and well-being

7. May this trend con­tin­ue (and for bet­ter rea­sons): Grow­ing inter­est in dig­i­tal men­tal health among insur­ers and med­ical care providers.

8. Par­tic­u­lar­ly promis­ing for mul­ti­ple scle­ro­sis, ocu­lar hyper­ten­sion, dia­betes, and trau­mat­ic brain injury: Portable brain assess­ment device by Head­safe secures 510(k) FDA clear­ance.

9. May a lim­er­ick a day keep the neu­rol­o­gist away?

10. If not a lim­er­ick, per­haps a few brain teasers. Say the months of the year in alpha­bet­i­cal order. Too easy? Well, try doing so back­wards, in reverse alpha­bet­i­cal order. Five quick brain teasers to flex those Atten­tion and Work­ing Mem­o­ry men­tal muscles

11. You have been invit­ed to a fundrais­ing gala at your old col­lege (via Zoom of course) and decide that this black-tie event demands a super white Ital­ian shirt, like the one you bought years ago for your wed­ding. Ready for some quick math? Try this Brain Teas­er: What shirt size you need?

Have a great month of June,

The Sharp­Brains Team

Kaiser Permanente offers Calm mental fitness app at no cost to millions of members

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Med­i­ta­tion app Calm is now free for Kaiser Per­ma­nen­te’s mil­lions of mem­bers (CNBC):

Kaiser Per­ma­nente is try­ing to give its 12.4 mil­lion mem­bers a lit­tle bit of calm.

Start­ing Tues­day, the health-care provider is allow­ing patients to down­load the Calm med­i­ta­tion app for free as part of a way to help cus­tomers man­age anx­i­ety as they deal with the fall­out from the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic. Calm is the most-pop­u­lar health and fit­ness app on Google-pow­ered devices and No. 2 on the iPhone, accord­ing to App Annie. Paid sub­scrip­tions nor­mal­ly cost $70 a year … Calm was see­ing surg­ing growth even before the coro­n­avirus forced Amer­i­cans to shel­ter in place and led to sky­rock­et­ing unem­ploy­ment. The San Fran­cis­co-based start-up was val­ued by investors last year at $1 bil­lion, two years after being named Apple’s app of the year back in 2017. The app has been down­loaded over 80 mil­lion times.

[Read more…] about Kaiser Per­ma­nente offers Calm men­tal fit­ness app at no cost to mil­lions of members

Portable brain assessment device by Headsafe secures 510(k) FDA clearance

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FDA Clears Nurocheck, Portable Device to Quick­ly Assess Brain Health (MS News Today):

“A portable device that can quick­ly mea­sure elec­tri­cal activ­i­ty in the brain and relay it to doc­tors via a smart­phone app, called the Nurochek sys­tem, has been cleared by the Unit­ed States Food and Drug Admin­is­tra­tion (FDA) for use as a med­ical device. [Read more…] about Portable brain assess­ment device by Head­safe secures 510(k) FDA clearance

Big Ten Conference announces “Mental Health and Wellness Cabinet” and Calm app rollout

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Big Ten Con­fer­ence Announces Men­tal Health Ini­tia­tives (press release):

“The Big Ten Con­fer­ence for­mal­ly announced today, in con­junc­tion with Men­tal Health Aware­ness Month, the for­ma­tion of the Big Ten Men­tal Health and Well­ness Cab­i­net, which includes rep­re­sen­ta­tives from all 14 Big Ten insti­tu­tions, as well as sport affil­i­ate mem­bers Johns Hop­kins (women’s and men’s lacrosse) and Notre Dame (men’s hock­ey). In con­junc­tion with today’s announce­ment, the Big Ten Con­fer­ence is pleased to share that all Big Ten stu­dent-ath­letes, coach­es, full-time mem­bers of uni­ver­si­ty ath­let­ic depart­ments and con­fer­ence staff mem­bers will [Read more…] about Big Ten Con­fer­ence announces “Men­tal Health and Well­ness Cab­i­net” and Calm app rollout

Mixed reactions on the development of digital biomarkers and growth of Mindstrong Health

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(More on the pos­i­tive side, at MIT Tech­nol­o­gy Review) The smart­phone app that can tell you’re depressed before you know it your­self:

“There are about 45 mil­lion peo­ple in the US alone with a men­tal ill­ness, and those ill­ness­es and their cours­es of treat­ment can vary tremen­dous­ly. But there is some­thing most of those peo­ple have in com­mon: a smart­phone [Read more…] about Mixed reac­tions on the devel­op­ment of dig­i­tal bio­mark­ers and growth of Mind­strong Health