Monitoring and Stabilizing Behavioral Rhythms to Improve Mental Health

AbstractHealthRhythmsIncSubstantial evidence supports the idea that disruptions in the regularity of behavioral routinesorsocial rhythmscan lead to the onset of psychiatric symptoms and full blown episodes via their impact on endogenous circadian rhythms andconversely that stable social routines protect against new mood episodesBased on our conviction that monitoringevaluatingand increasing the regularity of behavioral rhythms has broad applicability for improving mental healthwe established HealthRhythmsIncwww healthrhythms comwith the goal of using mobile technology to add the layer of mental health care to all of healthcareOur product model capitalizes on the ubiquity and intimacy of smartphones and their capacity to sense parameters of behavior that represent key indicators of mental health on abasis captured in the user s natural environmentopposed to the sporadicin clinic measurement that has characterized mental healthcare to dateThe product we envision will ultimately have three pillarsRhythm SensingRhythm Trendingand Rhythm StabilizationThe first two of these pillars have been developed and thousands of licenses for our product have already been soldBuilding on our accomplishments to datethis SBIR Phase II Direct proposal extends our work in three waysfurther validating our existing technologydeveloping the next stage of our technology andexpanding and improving our prediction models and demonstrating the cost effectiveness of our technologyThe Specific Aims areAimEnhance our Rhythm Trending capabilities through intensive examination and analysis of data from thepatients with whom our product has already been deployedAimDevelop the envisioned Rhythm Stabilization pillar of our technologyAimExpand the nature of the data included in our prediction models and demonstrate their utilityProject Narrative HealthRhythmsIncis on a mission to become the world leader in tracking clinically meaningful behavioral health rhythms in order to provide automated intervention advice to patients around the globeThe work we propose in this Direct Level II SBIR applicationwill enable HealthRhythms to be certain thatwe are using all the power of the smartphone to get the measurement of behavioral health exactly right andwe can use those measurements to help individuals with depression or anxiety make changes in their behavior that are right for them andtherebyreduce their symptoms and keep those symptoms from coming back