Centre for Mobile Computing in Mental Health

With funding from the Sunnybrook AFP Innovation Fund, MyChart and the Centre for Mobile Computing in Mental Health are integrating mental health telemetry (MHT) into Sunnybrook’s ‘MyChart’ electronic patient portal and enhancing MHT to provide just-in-time customized educational tips about the management of mood disorders for its users. This project, carried out with extensive input from clients with lived experience with mood disorders, will focus on optimizing users’ experience with the MyChart-MHT system.

In collaboration and with funding from the Frederick W. Thompson Anxiety Disorders Centre, we are investigating the usefulness of mental health telemetry for enhancing the treatment of hair-pulling or skin-picking, and as a tool to assist with cognitive behavioural therapy in obsessive compulsive disorder. We hope that adding mental health telemetry to standard treatments will lead to faster uptake of effective strategies for dealing with these illnesses.

Led by Drs. Peggy Richter, Mark Sinyor and Neil Rector, this project will explore whether using mental health telemetry can be helpful with cognitive behavioural therapy homework completion in these two conditions.

The Centre for Mobile Computing in Mental Health is developing a tool for rating self-management of depression. Our collaborator on this project is Dr. Neil Rector, a scientist in the Hurvitz Brain Sciences Research Program at Sunnybrook Research Institute and an authority on cognitive behavioural therapy.

If you are interested in helping us with this project, please email appstudy@sunnybrook.ca or call 416-528-0396.

Calling for care (2008 to 2012)

The Centre for Mobile Computing in Mental Health is using mass-market cell phones (Motorola QA30s) for mental health telemetry and life-event tracking in adolescents with mood instability.

This project was funded by Motorola Mobility Canada.

Videos

Identification of very early response to quetiapine augmentation in the treatment of major depressive disorder (2009 to 2012)

The Centre for Mobile Computing in Mental Health is using an augmented version of VADIS mental health telemetry software to track changes in symptoms of major depressive disorder following a pharmaceutical intervention.

Dr. Ayal Schaffer from Sunnybrook Research Institute is the principal investigator of this project.

Project funding is from Astra Zeneca. Project results are in press in Psychiatry Research.

With funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Centre for Mobile Computing in Mental Health will be studying whether mental health telemetry (MHT) can help enable patients with major depression to be more successful in managing their illness.

Other collaborators on this project are Dr. Katherine Boydell, a health systems research scientist at the Hospital for Sick Children, and Karen Liberman, former executive director of the Mood Disorders Association of Ontario.

Minimal and maximal mood monitoring (4M) (2006—2009)

The University of British Columbia was using VADIS mental health telemetry software and “LifePattern” telemetry viewing software from the Centre for Mobile Computing in Mental Health on Palm Treo 680 smartphones to assess the impact of mood monitoring on patient outcomes in bipolar disorder.

This project was conducted in collaboration with principal investigator Dr. Erin Michalak, Dr. Greg Murray (Swinbourne University, Australia) and others. See crestbd.ca for more information.

Funding was provided by the Canadian Psychiatric Research Foundation and the Michael Smith Foundation.

Mood changes and daily life (MiDL) (2004–2008)

Researchers at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre and Women’s College Hospital used the Centre for Mobile Computing in Mental Health’s VADIS mental health telemetry software on Palm Treo 650 smartphones to follow the mood symptoms of 107 women prospectively over six months each, to see if menstruation-linked cycling of mood or other symptoms occur.

This project was completed in collaboration with principal investigator Sarah E. Romans from Women’s College Hospital; Nili Benazon and Brenda Toner from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health; Donna E. Stewart and Sheila E. Laredo from Women’s College Hospital; Kathryn Morgan from the University of Toronto’s department of philosophy; and Gillian Einstein from U of T’s department of psychology.

Funding was provided by the Canadian Institute of Health Research.

Results of this study have been published in Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics (2013).

With funding from the Sunnybrook AFP Innovation Fund, the Centre for Mobile Computing in Mental Health is developing software to integrate mental health telemetry (MHT) into routine clinical care in the department of psychiatry at Sunnybrook. This project will explore whether patients’ and clinicians’ use of MHT results in fewer rehospitalizations for patients with recurrent mood disorders.

Wireless mobility: Mapping long-term mood variations in bipolar mood disorder (1999–2003)

The Centre for Mobile Computing in Mental Health developed mental health telemetry software VADIS, and used this software on Kyocera pdQ1900 smartphones to administer self-report questionnaires twice-daily over 18 months. Nineteen patients with rapidly cycling bipolar disorder and 19 healthy people (controls) participated in the study. The patients’ experiences of depression, mania and anxiety were tracked to chart how intensely they were experiencing symptoms.

Results have been reported at scholarly meetings and in publications; additional analysis is ongoing.

The project was funded by the Bell University Labs at the University of Toronto and Palm Canada Inc.

Selected publications:

• Lumsden C. Wireless Mobility: Mapping Long-Term Mood Variations in Bipolar Mood Disorder Outline [Online].
• Kreindler D, Lumsden CJ, Levitt A, Woolridge N. Portable Mood Mapping: The Validity and Reliability of Analog Scale Displays for Mood Assessment via Hand Held Computer. Psychiatry Research 2003;120:165–77.
• Kreindler D, Levitt A, Lumsden CJ. Collecting Extended and Accurate Mood Self-Report Time Series Data Using Wireless Handheld Telemetry in Bipolar Disorder. Presented at the 54th Annual Meeting of the Canadian Psychiatric Association. Montreal, 2004.

Mood assessment via animated characters (MAAC) (2002 to 2012)

The Centre for Mobile Computing in Mental Health is using animation to help children accurately communicate how they are feeling to clinicians.

The project was developed in collaboration with Drs. Katharina Manassis and Sandra Mendlowitz from the Hospital for Sick Children’s department of psychiatry; Jason Sharpe from biomedical communications at the University of Toronto; and Mark Simon, program coordinator of the Sheridan College computer animation program.

The project was originally funded by the Hospital for Sick Children (2003 to 2005), with subsequent funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (2009 to 2012).

Manassis K, Mendlowitz S, Kreindler D, Lumsden C, Sharpe J, Simon M, Woolridge N, Monga S, Adler-Nevo G. Mood assessment via animated characters: a novel instrument to evaluate feelings in young anxious children. J Clin Child Adolesc Psychol. 2009; 38:380-89.

Learn more about the MAAC Project.