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Scientists have developed video games using AI technology to diagnose, monitor and treat depression.
The platform, called Thymia, aims to make depression and other mental health conditions as measurable as physical ailments.
Dr Emilia Molimpakis, CEO and co-founder of Thymia, told Sky News: “Right now the existing system is flawed in many ways, GPs don’t have time, the existing systems they have are subjective questionnaires that are incredibly biased and there’s no follow-up between appointments.
“Thymia is the first system that offers objectivity and uses several types of data in order to create a really accurate and robust model of depression.”
The programme asks patients to play simple video games, with a neuropsychological underpinning, ultimately designed to measure depressive cues.
While playing the games, the software analyses the patient’s voice, eye gaze and micro-expressions as well as behavioural measures including reaction times, memory and error rates.
Through this, patterns indicative of depression are picked up on, allowing a diagnosis to be made quickly.
As it is designed to monitor patients in the long-term, patients can play games in-between appointments, helping identify whether treatments are working over time.
Dr Emilia Molimpakis is hopeful the Thymia programme will help clinicians achieve a diagnosis for depression much faster
Dr Molimpakis said: “What we hope to achieve is to help clinicians achieve the right diagnosis much faster – currently it takes years, we want to reduce that to weeks – and also help them find the right treatment for each individual patient.”
Posy Parsons first began to experience symptoms of depression in her mid-20s.
Currently, diagnostic tools used to diagnose depression…
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Source : skynews
