Trend: Despite concerns, large US employers deploy apps, AI chatbots, other digital tools to boost workplace mental health
Employers Are Offering a New Worker Benefit: Wellness Chatbots (The Wall Street Journal):
More workers feeling anxious, stressed or blue have a new place to go for mental-health help: a digital app.
Chatbots that hold therapist-like conversations and wellness apps that deliver depression and other diagnoses or identify people at risk of self-harm are snowballing across employers’ healthcare benefits.
“The demand for counselors is huge, but the supply of mental-health providers is shrinking,” said J. Marshall Dye, chief executive officer of PayrollPlans, a Dallas-based provider of benefits software used by small and m...
Source: SharpBrains - January 9, 2024 Category: Neuroscience Authors: SharpBrains Tags: Brain/ Mental Health Peak Performance Technology & Innovation CBT depression digital app digital therapeutic healthcare benefits Koa Health Mental-Health self-harm wellness chatbot Woebot worker benefit Source Type: blogs
What are the most commonly used pain self-management strategies?
In a very unscientific vox populi survey conducted via my blog, I asked people with pain to tell me the FIVE self-management strategies they’d used over the week prior. If you’re interested in completing this yourself, click here: click. (Scroll down that page to the survey).
My reason for asking the question is that we have a list of self-management strategies, but the definitions and the way strategies are used in daily life are quite murky. For example, we don’t have a clear definition of ‘activity pacing’ though we are starting to investigate it. We also don’t know whether strateg...
Source: HealthSkills Weblog - November 19, 2023 Category: Anesthesiology Authors: BronnieLennoxThompson Tags: Chronic pain Coping strategies Research Resilience/Health pain management Therapeutic approaches Source Type: blogs
Time for a universal “exercise prescription” for kids and adults to boost cognition and mental health?
Welcome to a new edition of SharpBrains e‑newsletter, featuring this time a range of brain research findings, tools and controversies plus some brain teasers to challenge your (and our) working memory.
#1. Major evidence review supports an “exercise prescription” for most adults to boost mental health
“Higher intensity physical activity was associated with greater improvements” and “Effectiveness of physical activity interventions diminished with longer duration interventions.”
The sweet spot was four or five half-hour effortful sessions per week. Are you hitting it?
#2. (Separate) Evidence review: Ph...
Source: SharpBrains - August 31, 2023 Category: Neuroscience Authors: SharpBrains Tags: Attention & ADD/ADHD Brain Teasers Brain/ Mental Health Education & Lifelong Learning Peak Performance SharpBrains Monthly eNewsletter Technology & Innovation AirPods Apple boost mental health brain teasers for adults brain-activity Source Type: blogs
The Top 10 Health Chatbots
This study from March 2023 reports how an app developed to help patients’ bowel preparation can increase compliance and thus, the number of successful colonoscopies.
In some cases, health chatbots are also able to connect patients with clinicians for diagnosis or treatment, but that is one step further down the line. The general idea is that in the future, these talking or texting smart algorithms might become the first contact point for primary care. Patients will not get in touch with physicians or nurses or any medical professional with every one of their health questions but will turn to chatbots first. If th...
Source: The Medical Futurist - August 1, 2023 Category: Information Technology Authors: berci.mesko Tags: Artificial Intelligence in Medicine Future of Medicine Healthcare Design health chatbot Innovation List medical Personalized medicine AI technology digital health chatbots Source Type: blogs
Virtual cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) accounts for over 30% of NHS mental health treatments — up from 10% in 2017
Concern as a third of NHS mental health treatments shift online (The Guardian):
An Observer analysis of data from private providers, cross-checked against NHS figures, reveals around one in three mental health treatments in England are delivered online, up from one in five in 2019, and one in 10 in 2017. Patients with mild to moderate depression or anxiety can be referred to app- or web-based, self-guided cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) courses, instead of traditional face-to-face talking therapies.
The health watchdog Nice has approved three online CBT courses for NHS patients with depression: Beating the Blues, by 36...
Source: SharpBrains - July 12, 2023 Category: Neuroscience Authors: SharpBrains Tags: Brain/ Mental Health Technology & Innovation 365 Health Solutions Amwell Beating the Blues cognitive behavioural therapy Deprexis Ethypharm Digital Therapy mental health treatments mild to moderate anxiety mild to moderate depression Source Type: blogs
Should doctors prescribe Leqembi (lecanemab) to women with early Alzheimer ’s Disease? The evidence-based answer is probably No
Welcome to a new edition of SharpBrains e‑newsletter, featuring this time a range of interventions for brain/ cognitive/ mental health plus a few brain teasers to test our perception and cognitive skills.
#1. Should doctors prescribe lecanemab (Leqembi) to women? The answer, given available evidence, is probably No
Huge (and mostly overlooked) red flag regarding newly approved “anti-Alzheimer’s” drugs: “To put it bluntly, if lecanemab doesn’t work in women it would be unethical to supply it to women. Recall this costly immunotherapy comes with substantive risks, including high incidence of ARIA and even death....
Source: SharpBrains - June 28, 2023 Category: Neuroscience Authors: SharpBrains Tags: Brain/ Mental Health SharpBrains Monthly eNewsletter Technology & Innovation ADHD-symptoms Alzheimers-disease Anti-Alzheimer’s Drugs anti-amyloid drugs ARIA Brain Teasers brain teasers for adults cognitive-behavioral-therapy cognit Source Type: blogs
The National Health Service (NHS) in England to roll-out nine online cognitive-behavioural therapies (CBT) for adults with anxiety or depression
Online depression therapy given go-ahead in England (BBC News):
Nine online talking-therapy treatments for anxiety or depression have been given the green light to be used by the NHS in England.
… The new digital therapies are delivered via a website or an app and use cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT).
They provide an alternative way of accessing support, which may be more convenient for some, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) says. They could also free up resources and help reduce the wait for care.…
Mark Chapman from NICE said: “One of our priorities is to get the best care to peop...
Source: SharpBrains - June 14, 2023 Category: Neuroscience Authors: SharpBrains Tags: Brain/ Mental Health Technology & Innovation anxiety-disorders Beating the Blues CBT methods cognitive behavioural therapy Deprexis iCT-PTSD iCT-SAD National Institute for Health and Care Excellence NHS NHS Talking Therapies online Source Type: blogs
Learning ACT (acceptance and commitment therapy)
Around 2001 I read what I believe is the first randomised controlled trial of ACT for people living with chronic pain (McCracken, 1998). I quickly dived into this ‘new’ therapy – it appealed to me because it resonated with my own experiences with psychological therapies for depression, and in the way I had learned to live alongside my own pain. For those who don’t know, I developed chronic pain around the age of 22ish (dates are hard to remember!) and after seeing a pain specialist was given those fateful words ‘I’m sorry, there’s nothing we can do from a medical perspective.’...
Source: HealthSkills Weblog - May 14, 2023 Category: Anesthesiology Authors: BronnieLennoxThompson Tags: 'Pacing' or Quota ACT - Acceptance & Commitment Therapy Chronic pain Motivation Occupational therapy Pain conditions Physiotherapy Professional topics Psychology Research Science in practice acceptance and commitment therapy Therap Source Type: blogs
5 Relaxation Techniques For Stress And Anxiety
Relaxation techniques that are scientifically proven include progressive relaxation, autogenic training, meditation and cognitive-behavioural therapy. (Source: PsyBlog | Psychology Blog)
Source: PsyBlog | Psychology Blog - December 15, 2022 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Jeremy Dean Tags: Anxiety Mindfulness Source Type: blogs
Global Digital Health 100 – The Medical Futurist ’ s Top Choices in 2022
We first published the list of the Top 100 Digital Health Companies in 2017, highlighting the mindblowing growth the sector registered in the previous year. “Global digital health investments totalled more than 8 billion USD in 2016” – we wrote. Looking at the latest data, we better keep our seatbelts fastened: this figure was USD 57.2 billion in 2021, with a year-on-year growth of 79%.
Digital health is booming, with dozens, hundreds of startups and scale-ups entering the realm each year. While their spectacular promises are loud, failure is silent – unless it happens to one of the tech giants ...
Source: The Medical Futurist - November 7, 2022 Category: Information Technology Authors: Andrea Koncz Tags: TMF bioprinting digital health Healthcare wearables top 100 telemedicine digital health companies remote care digital therapeutics Source Type: blogs
Building cognitive reserve helps delay memory and thinking decline regardless of genetic or childhood markers
Welcome to a new edition of SharpBrains’ e‑newsletter, featuring timely brain news and a few fun brain teasers to test your perceptual and cognitive skills.
#1. Study: Building cognitive reserve helps delay memory and thinking decline regardless of genetic or childhood markers
“While our childhood can influence our memory and thinking skills later in life, this research underlines the message that it’s never too late to take action to support cognitive health.” — Dr Sara Imarisio, Head of Strategic Initiatives at Alzheimer’s Research UK
#2. Fully-automated analysis of voice recordings–from neuropsychologica...
Source: SharpBrains - August 30, 2022 Category: Neuroscience Authors: SharpBrains Tags: Brain Teasers Brain/ Mental Health Education & Lifelong Learning SharpBrains Monthly eNewsletter Technology & Innovation Akili Interactive Labs antidepressants cognitive behaviour therapy cognitive-health cognitive-reserve dementia d Source Type: blogs
