Mobile health round-up: May 2019

Return to eHealthNews.nz home page

eHealthNews.nz editor Rebecca McBeth

Digital options for Piki youth mental health pilot rolled out

The second stages of the Piki programme have been rolled out, specifically the use of the Melon wellness app in conjunction with face-to-face therapies, and the Piki self-referral website.

Piki is a free programme that supports 18 to 25-year-olds with mild-to-moderate mental health needs.

The pilot programme launched in Porirua in February and is now available in the Capital & Coast District Health Board, and in tertiary institutions throughout the Wellington, Hutt and Wairarapa areas.

Young people in these areas can now self-refer to Piki where they can join a Melon online community, work with a coach or therapist via live chat, video or audio, and use digital resilience tools.

As of 31 March, Piki had delivered 1326 therapy sessions to 609 young people. The pilot is expected to be in full operation across the three greater Wellington region DHBs by the end of the year.

Kiwi mental health app adapted for indigenous communities in Canada

A Canadian version of the youth mental health app Sparx is being created.

Developed at the University of Auckland, Sparx is aimed at 12 to 19-year-olds with mild-to-moderate depression and/or anxiety and delivers treatment through what looks like a fantasy game.

It has been proven in a large randomised controlled trial to be as effective as routine care.

The game is now being adapted for the Nunavut territory of Canada by researchers at York University. The characters’ appearance and backgrounds will change to look like Nunavut  and dialogue will be recorded by locals.

$5 million grant for pain recognition app in Australia 

The Australian Government will invest $5 million in a national trial of a pain recognition app for people living with dementia.

PainChek was originally conceived at Western Australia’s Curtin University and then further developed by listed Australian digital health company PainChek Ltd.

It provides caregivers and health professionals with an efficient, smartphone-based system that applies artificial intelligence to determine a person’s pain using facial recognition analytics.

“Accurately identifying the pain felt by people who have communication challenges can be difficult and with more than 50 per cent of residents in aged care homes living with dementia, there is a widespread risk of under-treated pain,” says Minister for Senior Australians and Aged Care Ken Wyatt AM.

PainChek chief executive Philip Daffas says that “this programme will help refine how the app gets integrated into every day clinical care in the aged residential setting.”

Mobile phone game detects Alzheimer’s risk

A specially designed mobile phone game can detect people at risk of Alzheimer’s, according to new research from the University of East Anglia.

Researchers studied gaming data from an app called Sea Hero Quest, which was created by Deutsche Telekom in partnership with Alzheimer’s Research UK, University College London, the University of East Anglia and game developers Glitchers.

The game has been designed to help researchers better understand dementia by seeing how the brain works in relation to spatial navigation. Researchers found that people who are genetically at risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease can be distinguished from those who are not on specific levels of the game.

The findings are particularly important because a standard memory and thinking test could not distinguish between the risk and non-risk groups.

Wearing a fitness device gets cancer survivors active

Wearable fitness technology could be used to improve the amount of physical activity done by cancer survivors, research from Cancer Council Victoria shows.

A new study published in Cancer reveals that wearing a fitness band increases levels of physical activity by more than an hour a week, as well as decreasing sitting time.

The ACTIVATE trial found the combination of mobile health tools and coaching successfully increased physical activity and decreased sitting time in postmenopausal breast cancer survivors.

At the end of the 12-week trial, the group wearing fitness trackers performed 69 minutes more physical activity than the control group who did not wear the trackers, and sat for 37 minutes less per day. Activity levels were accurately measured using research-grade accelerometers, devices that measure body movement.

Read more mobile health news:

Mobile health round-up: March

Mobile health round-up: February

Return to eHealthNews.nz home page