Ditch your therapist for a smartphone app

Soon, people may be able to carry their therapists around in their pocket in the form of a smartphone. Researchers at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine want to use technology to assist people with mental health problems by creating an app that will recognize when people are depressed and try to help them by sending them reminders to call or see friends.
Smartphones are ideal for this goal because of their complexity. They already contain 35 to 40 sensors, which can help them determine their owners' mood. They are equipped with a GPS and an address book, which enable them to figure out their users' location at a certain time of day.
They have accelerometers that record how often their owners generally move, and they can detect their owners' email volume and phone activity to see how social they usually are. Once the phones have determined their users' usual patterns of behavior, they can detect deviation from that behavior.
If the phone thinks that you are becoming less social and potentially depressed, it can send you reminders or suggestions, such as telling you to take a walk, reminding you about plans with friends or suggesting that you call someone. The researchers refer to this as a positive feedback loop: someone is more likely to go see friends if encouraged to do so, and if the experience results in feelings of enjoyment, there is less of a chance that the individual will continue to exhibit anti-social behaviors.
The program is called Mobilyze! and is available on phones and through an interactive website or email. Researchers believe that it will help improve the mood of all its users. Their goal is to significantly improve the lives of people with a major depressive disorder, which affects seven percent of the population each year. Additionally, Mobilyze! utilizes an innovative treatment option, which might be ideal for people who are uncomfortable or unable to see a psychiatrist. It also costs less than traditional ways of treating depression. There are electronic systems currently available that attempt to do the same thing as the Mobilyze! system. However, they require patients to log their own activities, mood, and level of social interaction, among other aspects. This is inconvenient and sometimes difficult for people to do.
The scientists at Northwestern believe that the less work that the average person has to put into an intervention system, the more likely he or she is to use it. Thus, the scientists focused on developing systems that would be able to identify the moods of their users on their own, as well as recognize when their users are engaged in activities they are enjoying.
Last year, researchers tested the device by performing a small, eight-week pilot study. Seven adults who had a history of depression utilized Mobilyze! by entering their mood, their location, activities in which they were engaged and the types of people they encountered. The system helped them recognize what activities or other aspects of their day were triggering negative moods. The researchers observed that the volunteers managed to reduce symptoms of depression over time. Also, all the volunteers stated that Mobilyze! had helped them figure out and change behaviors that depressed them.
Although the study was encouraging, researchers want to continue modifying the system. They eventually plan to release a version of the app compatible with the Android mobile-device operating system. They are currently modifying the app and will begin testing it this year in the hopes of starting a field trial on it this summer.