Time for a universal “exercise prescription” for kids and adults to boost cognition and mental health?

By SharpBrains | August 31, 2023 |

Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing this time a range of brain research find­ings, tools and con­tro­ver­sies plus some brain teasers to chal­lenge your (and our) work­ing mem­o­ry. #1. Major evi­dence review sup­ports an “exer­cise pre­scrip­tion” for most adults to boost men­tal health “High­er inten­si­ty phys­i­cal activ­i­ty was asso­ci­at­ed with greater improvements”…

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Virtual cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) accounts for over 30% of NHS mental health treatments — up from 10% in 2017

By SharpBrains | July 12, 2023

Con­cern as a third of NHS men­tal health treat­ments shift online (The Guardian): An Observ­er analy­sis of data from pri­vate providers, cross-checked against NHS fig­ures, reveals around one in three men­tal health treat­ments in Eng­land are deliv­ered online, up from one in five in 2019, and one in 10 in 2017. Patients with mild to…

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NICE in the UK issues recommendation for Sleepio app, the digital cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia by Big Health

By SharpBrains | May 24, 2022

Sleepio becomes first dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tic to receive NICE guid­ance (Mobi­Health­News): The Nation­al Insti­tute for Health and Care Excel­lence (NICE) has rec­om­mend­ed the Sleepio app as an effec­tive alter­na­tive to sleep­ing pills. In its guid­ance, NICE states the app, cre­at­ed by dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tics (DTx) firm Big Health, is a safe and effec­tive treat­ment for peo­ple suf­fer­ing from…

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Pear Therapeutics raises $175M and goes public via SPAC deal raising the profile of prescription digital therapeutics

By SharpBrains | December 8, 2021

Dig­i­tal health firm Pear goes pub­lic, rais­ing $175 mil­lion (phar­mafo­rum): Pear will make its debut on the exchange today after com­bin­ing with Thim­ble Point – a spe­cial pur­pose acqui­si­tion com­pa­ny (SPAC) – in a deal that side­stepped the con­ven­tion­al ini­tial pub­lic offer­ing (IPO) route and has pro­pelled its val­u­a­tion to around $1.6 bil­lion … Pear specialises…

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Trend: Harnessing digital tech to improve mental health and wellness

By SharpBrains | October 25, 2021

From mind­ful­ness apps to vir­tu­al ther­a­py ses­sions, dig­i­tal tools offer instant access to well­ness resources (The Globe and Mail): In 2015, Brie Code was work­ing at lead­ing video game com­pa­ny Ubisoft as lead arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence pro­gram­mer when she real­ized that many peo­ple she knew – about half, by her esti­ma­tion – found video games boring.

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