Final Report Summary - UBICOM MENTAL HEALTH (Ubiquitous mental health support systems for managing long-term mental health illness)
Bipolar disorder is a mood disorder typified by periods of extremely elevated moods and deep depressions. The illness affects a person’s cognition, mood and energy levels and is common, affecting between 1-3 % of the world’s population. Bipolar disorder affects individuals in developing and industrialized countries and both men and women equally regardless of socio-economic status. A further 5-10% of people are estimated to suffer from bipolar symptoms. Quality of life for individuals with bipolar disorder is extremely poor; approximately one third of individuals attempt suicide. Additional negative outcomes include relationship problems, divorce and loss of productivity.
Although mental illness is a leading cause of disability and premature mortality in the western world, relatively little research has been conducted into the use of technology to support improved outcomes. The ‘Ubicom Mental Health’ project is addressing this by investigating the use of technology by individuals with bipolar disorder in order to develop effective technologies to improve health outcomes.
The principal goal of this project was to develop mobile technologies to support people with bipolar disorder over their lifetime.
The first year of this project focused on three goals: 1) to establish partnerships to ensure the success of the research, 2) to gain an understanding of the state of the art in the treatment of bipolar disorder, and 3) to plan and develop and software prototypes. All three goals were achieved. A prototype smartphone system, MoodRhythm, was piloted with patients and clinicians with bipolar disorder; this system was awarded the open mHealth Challenge award by the Open mHealth Foundation in June 2013 (see image above).
The second year focused on extensive engagement with patients with bipolar disorder and their clinicians to understand how their experience affects their day-to-day life and how technology affects and might better support them. This work resulted in a scientific publication that detailed how technology could better support people with this illness.
The final year of this project focused on evaluating whether MoodRhythm meets patients needs and whether it was possible to use a combination of smartphone-based sensors to automatically detect changes in important that are central to clinical outcomes. The results of this research phase have been submitted to in two separate publications.
Mental health problems are predicted to increase. This will lead to an increased need for technologies to help individuals engage in proactive mental health management. The challenge is to fuse existing approaches to personal data capture into treatment tools that may improve the lives of individuals with clinical mental health problems like bipolar disorder. This project strove to improve outcomes for people with bipolar disorder by creating technologies that supports both self-report and automatic assessment of wellbeing and encourages individuals to maintain balanced lives. This project has resulted been tremendously successful on many levels. From a scientific perspective, it has resulted in significant advances in our understanding of the interplay between bipolar disorder and information technology. This includes understanding how technology is currently used by individuals with bipolar disorder and how it can be used to provide improved treatment. In a large-scale survey, we found that changes in technology use (e.g. how often a person is using Facebook) could act as an early warning sign prior to relapse. Over three years, we co-developed a smartphone app, MoodRhythm, that was based on clinically validated treatment for bipolar disorder. We demonstrated that this app was well accepted by patients with bipolar disorder and that it could be used to automatically detect patient wellbeing by using smartphone sensors. More broadly, the results of this project have been disseminated in over 20 presentations in both the U.S. and Europe and via many articles in the media. From a technical perspective, we have provided open source smartphone modules for detecting sleep and social activity that could have broad application across all of health. Finally, this fellowship has helped the fellow, Dr. Matthews, establish a network of first class researchers in health technology and mental health that will provide a vital support in establishing a world class career in this exciting field.
Although mental illness is a leading cause of disability and premature mortality in the western world, relatively little research has been conducted into the use of technology to support improved outcomes. The ‘Ubicom Mental Health’ project is addressing this by investigating the use of technology by individuals with bipolar disorder in order to develop effective technologies to improve health outcomes.
The principal goal of this project was to develop mobile technologies to support people with bipolar disorder over their lifetime.
The first year of this project focused on three goals: 1) to establish partnerships to ensure the success of the research, 2) to gain an understanding of the state of the art in the treatment of bipolar disorder, and 3) to plan and develop and software prototypes. All three goals were achieved. A prototype smartphone system, MoodRhythm, was piloted with patients and clinicians with bipolar disorder; this system was awarded the open mHealth Challenge award by the Open mHealth Foundation in June 2013 (see image above).
The second year focused on extensive engagement with patients with bipolar disorder and their clinicians to understand how their experience affects their day-to-day life and how technology affects and might better support them. This work resulted in a scientific publication that detailed how technology could better support people with this illness.
The final year of this project focused on evaluating whether MoodRhythm meets patients needs and whether it was possible to use a combination of smartphone-based sensors to automatically detect changes in important that are central to clinical outcomes. The results of this research phase have been submitted to in two separate publications.
Mental health problems are predicted to increase. This will lead to an increased need for technologies to help individuals engage in proactive mental health management. The challenge is to fuse existing approaches to personal data capture into treatment tools that may improve the lives of individuals with clinical mental health problems like bipolar disorder. This project strove to improve outcomes for people with bipolar disorder by creating technologies that supports both self-report and automatic assessment of wellbeing and encourages individuals to maintain balanced lives. This project has resulted been tremendously successful on many levels. From a scientific perspective, it has resulted in significant advances in our understanding of the interplay between bipolar disorder and information technology. This includes understanding how technology is currently used by individuals with bipolar disorder and how it can be used to provide improved treatment. In a large-scale survey, we found that changes in technology use (e.g. how often a person is using Facebook) could act as an early warning sign prior to relapse. Over three years, we co-developed a smartphone app, MoodRhythm, that was based on clinically validated treatment for bipolar disorder. We demonstrated that this app was well accepted by patients with bipolar disorder and that it could be used to automatically detect patient wellbeing by using smartphone sensors. More broadly, the results of this project have been disseminated in over 20 presentations in both the U.S. and Europe and via many articles in the media. From a technical perspective, we have provided open source smartphone modules for detecting sleep and social activity that could have broad application across all of health. Finally, this fellowship has helped the fellow, Dr. Matthews, establish a network of first class researchers in health technology and mental health that will provide a vital support in establishing a world class career in this exciting field.