Would you use an anxiety management tool ?

[JeffMises]

Hello, my name’s Jeff and I’m new here.

Me and some friends are working with mobile technologies and body sensors and we are looking to put this knowledge to good use. We know that a lot of companies are starting to use such technologies to manage the “body”, but not much about our “person”, our brain, the psychological part of us.
We are trying to help people who would benefit from such an adventure and help us develop the first generation of everyday sensing devices made for the brain. Think of it as a pedometer for your soul if you want. We talked about our ideas with people around us and the anxiety/panic attack came on the table quite often in the “stuff our brain does that we want to do differently” category.

This is a list of some stuff we could do


We can detect with great (but not perfect as of now, working on that) precision a panic/distress attack and isolate it from other physiological events using a body sensor and a smartphone.
We could store the time/location/intensity/duration of panic attack to help a person share them with their psychologist to help with their anxiety management. All this data would be private until you want to share it.
We could call on your phone or give you a notification when we sense a panic attack and give you hints to cope with it. Once the attack is controlled you could give feedback on the hint used to make it better for next time.
We can build the sensor to be hideable and/or fashionable so no one around would know what is it.



We have the following questions


What is your first impression about what you just read?
Would you use something like that? If yes, what would you like it do to? If not, why?
Would you be ready to pay for a tool like that? If yes how much? Would you prefer to have it by your psychologist?
Is there anything else that you feel would be important for us to know about your situation?
Is there any other way we could help you with such devices?
Would you like to work with us on the development of the tool?



Thanks a lot for your time, it’s greatly appreciated,

Jeff

[jessed03]

1. Interesting, but a little skeptical of it's overall effectiveness. Mainly because you said you can't detect panic attacks with perfect accuracy yet. I'd hate to be told I was gearing up for a panic attack if it wasn't quite so. Self fulfilling prophecy and all that. ;)

2. I guess I'd use it. If the device could tell me I was heating up, before I realised it, and I could go into my relaxation exercises and prevent or minimise a panic attack, I could see that it would be useful. It would be useful when starting CBT or therapy too. But not for all that long I imagine? It'd definetly use it if it had preventative capabilities.

3. I wouldn't really wanna pay out right for it unless it had preventative capabilities, mainly as it's not my style, but I wouldn't mind paying for therapy sessions, where this technology is a part of that process. It would feel more complete that way.

4. Type of anxiety would be important for you guys to know, right? Maybe that way hints could be more personalised.

5. I can't think of anything at the moment.

6. I don't get panic attacks anymore, and I've worked out my triggers, otherwise sure, I'd have tried to take part. I'm a bit of a nerd like that :)

[JeffMises]

Thanks for your input :)


1. Interesting, but a little skeptical of it's overall effectiveness. Mainly because you said you can't detect panic attacks with perfect accuracy yet. I'd hate to be told I was gearing up for a panic attack if it wasn't quite so. Self fulfilling prophecy and all that. ;)

2. I guess I'd use it. If the device could tell me I was heating up, before I realised it, and I could go into my relaxation exercises and prevent or minimise a panic attack, I could see that it would be useful. It would be useful when starting CBT or therapy too. But not for all that long I imagine? It'd definetly use it if it had preventative capabilities.

3. I wouldn't really wanna pay out right for it unless it had preventative capabilities, mainly as it's not my style, but I wouldn't mind paying for therapy sessions, where this technology is a part of that process. It would feel more complete that way.

4. Type of anxiety would be important for you guys to know, right? Maybe that way hints could be more personalised.

5. I can't think of anything at the moment.

6. I don't get panic attacks anymore, and I've worked out my triggers, otherwise sure, I'd have tried to take part. I'm a bit of a nerd like that :)

1. With more dev time we are pretty sure we can get near-perfect accuracy. Also the idea would be that the algorithm learn the pattern of the person. We would have more misses in the first days/weeks but as the user "train" the device we can get a lot better at evaluating each case, since everyone's different.

2. That a good point. We also think that the duration of use could be different from person to person, someone could need it a couple of month to learn to cope with signals and someone else could use it for a lifetime. Like on question 1, when we have data about a person, we could try to "prevent" attack when we see a lot of signals. In these cases we could just notify the person that she is heating up and not call it a panic attack, we don't want to create a situation, that would be bad.

3. This part of the idea is still a work in progress. We want to talk to psychologist if they are interested by the idea. It would be really awesome to create something covered by insurance also. We want to help the greatest number of people possible and be able to pay for all the tech dev, employees and such.

4. That's for sure, we don't know exactly what, but every user would have to create a profile on the system. This information would help up customize the system for their case and give us data to help create more performing solutions for the next users.


6. You would like to be in the loop about the project if it goes forward? We would need testers that's for sure, and someone who is currently managing its situation with success could be a really great help for us.

[NixonRulz]

I am in much the same place as Jesse when it comes to panic attacks. I don't get them anymore but I still get occassionally anxious

I am not sure the benefit it would have had for me. I could feel my body starting to stress and the adrenaline rush would come soon after

I don't believe it would tell me anything I didn't know was coming

And if I was just stressed but not leading towards panic and I received a phone call to prepare to prepare, that likely could cause it anyway

I do like that you are thinking of innovative ways to be helpful. Technology has a place with the treatment of anxiety I am sure

[jessed03]

Ok cool. And you're welcome! :)

I mean it sounds an interesting project. Technology is so cute these days, everybody who says something can't be done is being pushed out of the way by people on their way to buy that very thing that has just hit the stores. I wouldn't mind being kept in the loop.

Just out of interest...

How sensitive do you plan to make the device? Will it have some standard biofeedback features, where it can tell you when something gave you a physiological reaction, so you can understand some of your more subtle anxiety issues when they arise and you may not have noticed, or are you shooting just for extreme anxiety/panic?

And do you have any ballpark figure of how much you'd like the devise to cost? I guess it'd be one of those things, where if you see it in the catalogue, you're like shall I spend a hundred or so bucks on this, and umm and ahh over it, whereas if it's part of your insurance, or offered by your therapist, you'd be like, get me on the technology straight away!!!

[Fourteen14]

Hi Jeffmises

This sounds really interesting.

How is it that the technology can isolate psychological events rather than say an insulin surge for example?

Is this going to be along the lines of a mobile fMRI? Or is it heart rate based or both?

Unfortunately I know very little about technology and absolutely nothing about app development.

If you can produce what you are hoping to, I would safely safe you will likely be made for life financially, the implications for both treatment and diagnosis possibilities would be substantial.

[JeffMises]

Hi Jeffmises

This sounds really interesting.

How is it that the technology can isolate psychological events rather than say an insulin surge for example?

Is this going to be along the lines of a mobile fMRI? Or is it heart rate based or both?

Unfortunately I know very little about technology and absolutely nothing about app development.

If you can produce what you are hoping to, I would safely safe you will likely be made for life financially, the implications for both treatment and diagnosis possibilities would be substantial.

The idea is still is early stages, but the principe is to monitor enough stuff to identify situations where a combinaison of certains reading indicates a panic attack, and not some other situation.

We will have to find a balance between precision and cost, since the more sensing we use, the better is the prediction, but the device gets more expensive.

[Fourteen14]

The idea is still is early stages, but the principe is to monitor enough stuff to identify situations where a combinaison of certains reading indicates a panic attack, and not some other situation. We will have to find a balance between precision and cost, since the more sensing we use, the better is the prediction, but the device gets more expensive.

You may want to approach a medical/neurosciences faculty at one of the teaching hospitals/research&development labs, see if they can help you to sift through the variables.

[JeffMises]

You may want to approach a medical/neurosciences faculty at one of the teaching hospitals/research&development labs, see if they can help you to sift through the variables.

Yes, those guys could be a really great help!