LAS VEGAS: Whether detecting rising anxiety or managing a full-blown panic attack, the tech industry is offering an array of new tools designed to support mental health.
Scores of start-ups will pitch their solutions at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas including Swiss firm Nutrix, which is introducing cortiSense to measure levels of the so-called stress hormone cortisol.
A small cylindrical object with a thin strip at one end, cortiSense allows users to test and analyse their saliva directly – without having to spit into a tube and send it to a laboratory, according to Nutrix. Results can be consulted in minutes via a mobile app.
Up to now, Nutrix founder Maria Hahn said, to test your cortisol “you need to go to the hospital, or you need to send your samples”.
If users’ levels prove to be too high, Nutrix says it can put them in touch with health professionals to help craft an appropriate response.
Hahn said cortiSense could be a useful complement to other Nutrix monitors, like gSense, which compiles data on sleep, weight, physical activity and glucose levels.
“It’s about empowering the user,” she said.
While the device will be available for purchase by individuals, Hahn expects it will find greater interest from health insurers or even companies – which could compile data on overall stress levels in an office or within a work team, for example, without divulging personal information.
“Providing this aggregated data to the company,” she said, might help it decide that “people just need some holidays”.
New York psychologist Julie Kolzet cautioned that “these are not treatment devices, but adjunctive products that can help aid in initial assessment (and) screening”.
Breathing easier
French firm Baracoda, meanwhile, is presenting BMind, which it calls “the world’s first AI-powered smart mirror for mental wellness”.
Baracoda says the device has an integrated camera that can help identify signs of stress or fatigue – and then suggest the user take a moment to relax, view soothing images and listen to comforting music.
Then there is CalmiGo, a small handheld device to be used in moments of panic which activates the parasympathetic nervous system, slowing down the user’s heart rate and helping regulate emotions.
Company CEO Adi Wallach said the goal was to “create products that people can take with them everywhere they go, and use it in order to calm… down without being dependent on other people or on medication”.
The user places her mouth on the device, which looks like an asthmatic’s inhaler, and then breathes at a pace indicated by a flashing light – a pace the company says is calculated, using artificial intelligence, to work best for each individual.
The machine – of which 100,000 have sold in the United States – stimulates four of the five senses with its luminous signals, a physical vibration that also produces a sound, and soothing aromas that “detach you from an anxious state”, the company says.
CalmiGo says that a clinical study on former soldiers suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD) – undertaken in collaboration with faculty at Israel’s Reichman University – found that anxiety levels could be reduced within a few weeks.
Some patients were even able to do away with their medication altogether, according to Wallach.
Visitors to the CES may also meet Romi, a tabletop robot that the MIXI company says “many in Japan use to ease their anxiety and loneliness”.
In a demonstration video, Romi responds to its owner, who returns frustrated from a wasted night of work, gently suggesting that she watch a movie to relax. It seems to work.
However, the psychologist Kolzet is sceptical of the ability of robots, or more generally AI, to respond meaningfully to underlying causes of anxiety or depression.
“Maybe the more devices that pop up on the market, the more people will be interested in therapy,” she said.
But patients “want somebody to guide them”, Kolzet added. “They want to feel safe and validated, and I don’t think a robot can do that.”
This year’s CES runs from Jan 7 to Jan 10. – AFP
