Scientists are working on developing video games that use AI technology to diagnose, monitor, and treat depression. The platform, Thymia, aims to make depression and other mental health conditions as measurable as physical ailments. The program asks patients to play simple video games that feature a neuropsychological underpinning that’s ultimately designed to measure depressive cues.
While playing, the software analyzes the patient’s voice, eye gaze, and micro-expressions as well as behavioral measures including reaction times, memory, and error rates. Through this, patterns indicative of depression are picked up on, allowing a diagnosis to be quickly made. Since it is designed to monitor patients in the long term, patients can play games in-between appointments, helping identify whether treatments are working.
“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,” said Dr. Emilia Molimpakis, Co-Founder of Thymia.”
Thymia has gathered data from more than 2,000 patients with major depression and healthy individuals to train their AI models, with clinical trials beginning later this year. But there is concern over whether the technology will have the desired effect, with some saying the root of the problem needs to be the primary focus.
(All information was provided by Sky News)