depression

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

The explosion of mental health apps raises substantial opportunities–and tough questions

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In the eyes of the tech indus­try, men­tal health treat­ment is an area ripe for disruption.

In any giv­en year, 1 in 5 adults in the U.S. expe­ri­ence a form of men­tal ill­ness, accord­ing to fed­er­al esti­mates. And research indi­cates only about half of them receive treat­ment in a sys­tem that is under­staffed and ill dis­trib­uted to meet demand.

For tech star­tups look­ing to cash in on unmet need, that trans­lates into more than 50 mil­lion poten­tial cus­tomers. [Read more…] about The explo­sion of men­tal health apps rais­es sub­stan­tial opportunities–and tough questions

Don’t worry, be happy: How excessive worrying may influence the rate of neurodegeneration

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Wor­ry­ing and the Aging Brain (Dana Foundation):

Over the past decade, sci­en­tists and clin­i­cians have not­ed a sig­nif­i­cant asso­ci­a­tion between com­mon men­tal health con­di­tions and accel­er­at­ed brain aging—the changes to brain struc­ture, phys­i­ol­o­gy, and func­tion that are thought to lead to lat­er cog­ni­tive decline. Both depres­sion and anx­i­ety dis­or­ders, for exam­ple, are strong­ly cor­re­lat­ed with the devel­op­ment of demen­tias includ­ing Alzheimer’s dis­ease lat­er in life, yet it has been unclear why. Neu­ro­sci­en­tists and geron­tol­o­gists around the globe have dili­gent­ly worked to inves­ti­gate which par­tic­u­lar symp­toms might con­tribute to age-relat­ed cog­ni­tive decline. [Read more…] about Don’t wor­ry, be hap­py: How exces­sive wor­ry­ing may influ­ence the rate of neurodegeneration

On building better brains at any age, treating Depression vs. Dementia, emerging neurotechnologies, psychedelics, and more

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Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing eleven new research find­ings and inno­v­a­tive resources for life­long cog­ni­tive and brain health.

#1. Debate: Are depres­sion and demen­tia two sides of the same coin? And, if they are, how to best approach treatment?

#2. Either way, the ear­li­er the bet­ter, but it’s nev­er too late: New book out­lines the five lifestyle pil­lars to “build a bet­ter brain at any age”

#3. “If I were a car­di­ol­o­gist eval­u­at­ing a patient’s chest pain, for instance, I would speak with the patient, but then I would lis­ten to their heart and mea­sure their pulse and blood pres­sure. I might order an elec­tro­car­dio­gram or a car­diac stress test, tools that weren’t avail­able a cen­tu­ry ago. Because I’m a psy­chi­a­trist, how­ev­er, I eval­u­ate patients in pre­cise­ly the same way that my pre­de­ces­sors did in 1920…” Read­ing Our Minds: New book issues strong call to action to mod­ern­ize psychiatry

#4. Very time­ly effort by Well­come in the UK: Com­pre­hen­sive research review iden­ti­fies most promis­ing inter­ven­tions to boost work­place men­tal health

#5. “As we enter the sec­ond year of the pan­dem­ic, so many peo­ple are strug­gling and seek­ing men­tal health sup­port. Wysa is an exam­ple of how tech­nol­o­gy is help­ing mil­lions of peo­ple access every­day men­tal health sup­port and self-care tools with­out being gat­ed by a clin­i­cal diag­no­sis.” — Dr. Pankaj Jeth­wani, Exec­u­tive Vice Pres­i­dent at W Health Ven­tures. Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence (AI)-enabled chat­bot Wysa rais­es $5.5M to broad­en access to men­tal health support

#6. Study: Social media and gen­er­al tech engage­ment not found to “fry” teenagers’ brains

#7. Akili Inter­ac­tive Labs rais­es $160M in equi­ty and debt to trans­form cog­ni­tive health­care via pre­scrip­tion videogame treat­ments. A nice way to cel­e­brate Akil­i’s 10th anniver­sary … they are tar­get­ing ADHD first (now kids, lat­er teens and adults), to be fol­lowed by treat­ments for a range of cog­ni­tive dis­or­ders relat­ed to depres­sion, Mul­ti­ple Scle­ro­sis, Autism, “Covid-Fog” and more.

#8. Study: High­er men­tal well­be­ing (in 2016) seen to low­er health­care costs (in 2017). We still have time to invest in pub­lic men­tal well­be­ing in 2021.

#9. Teladoc Health, hav­ing acquired Livon­go and myS­trength, launch­es inte­grat­ed men­tal health ser­vice for the work­place. “The announce­ment comes as more than half of peo­ple with men­tal health con­cerns report that they do not know where to start when get­ting care, high­light­ing the impor­tance of the dig­i­tal front door myS­trength Com­plete will pro­vide…” This is indeed a very com­mon pain point accord­ing to our own research, so good to see the quite com­pre­hen­sive & per­son­al­ized approach.

#10. Cumu­lus Neu­ro­science rais­es $8.3M to devel­op EEG-based wire­less ‘Fit­bit for the brain’ — Fas­ci­nat­ing to see the major role of the Demen­tia Dis­cov­ery Fund, in a bid to accel­er­ate clin­i­cal tri­als and poten­tial therapies.

#11. Last but not least, a very promis­ing clin­i­cal appli­ca­tion of psy­che­delics: Study finds MDMA-assist­ed ther­a­py to be safe and high­ly effec­tive to treat severe PTSD. “The Nature authors spec­u­late that MDMA-assist­ed ses­sions pro­duce a “win­dow of tol­er­ance,” in which patients are able to revis­it trau­mat­ic mem­o­ries, with less shame and anger, and with­out being over­whelmed by PTSD symptoms.”

Wish­ing you a healthy Memo­r­i­al Week­end and month of June,

The Sharp­Brains Team

Debate: Are depression and dementia two sides of the same coin? And, if they are, how to best approach treatment?

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Every sev­en sec­onds, some­one in the world is diag­nosed with demen­tia. A typ­i­cal case that I often see in my prac­tice is as fol­lows: A 76-year-old woman has a two-year his­to­ry of pro­gres­sive wors­en­ing of short-term mem­o­ry and cog­ni­tive decline. She can’t recall the names of her grand­chil­dren and is dev­as­tat­ed by her dete­ri­o­rat­ing abilities.

How­ev­er, this is not the first time in her life that she has had feel­ings of loss and despair. Over the past 30 years, she has inter­mit­tent­ly strug­gled with depres­sion and anx­i­ety. Her fam­i­ly has many ques­tions: Does she have demen­tia or Alzheimer’s? Could her depres­sion have led to a demen­tia diag­no­sis? Is it only depres­sion and not demen­tia? These are all good ques­tions and the col­lec­tive answer to them is “yes.” [Read more…] about Debate: Are depres­sion and demen­tia two sides of the same coin? And, if they are, how to best approach treatment?

Teladoc Health, having acquired Livongo and myStrength, launches integrated mental health service for the workplace

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Teladoc builds out men­tal health­care ser­vices with myS­trength Com­plete (Mobi­Health­News):

Vir­tu­al care giant Teladoc is build­ing out its behav­ioral health ser­vices through its lat­est pro­gram, myS­trength Complete.

The new offer­ing is designed to give users a sin­gle inte­grat­ed men­tal health­care expe­ri­ence. It com­bines the app-based mod­els of care from myS­trength with Teladoc’s on-demand ther­a­pists and psy­chi­a­trists … The myS­trength plat­form uses evi­dence-based clin­i­cal mod­els such as cog­ni­tive behav­ioral ther­a­py, pos­i­tive psy­chol­o­gy and mind­ful­ness to help treat behav­ioral health con­di­tions such as depres­sion, anx­i­ety, insom­nia and sub­stance use dis­or­der. [Read more…] about Teladoc Health, hav­ing acquired Livon­go and myS­trength, launch­es inte­grat­ed men­tal health ser­vice for the workplace