- Startups and innovation
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by Kristina Liebute
Digital health startup develops an AI platform that will help doctors diagnose and monitor depression.
Video games will help doctors diagnose
Even in the 21st century, depression remains a stigmatised disease. By a large part, it’s due to subjectivity when assessing mental health. Digital health companies are aiming to change this by using video games to diagnose and monitor depression.
Currently, physicians rely on the patient’s self-reported data to measure the quality of life, such as the EQ–5D questionnaire. However, this method has proved to be problematic when used to assess mental disorders.
Scientists hope that these subjective and non-standardised measures can be replaced by specially designed video games on a platform called Thymia. The AI-powered platform helps detect signs of depression by using linguistics and machine learning.
Thymia is currently tested by thousands of patients at UCL and King’s College London in order to train the AI algorithm and tweak the user experience.
The creators of Thymia refer to the platform as the first objective psychiatric assessment system. The goal is that the technology will enable clinicians to assess and treat depression quicker. It also allows patients themselves understand their condition better.
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