Promoting Mental Health with the Smartwatch App Actiself
A new approach for the prevention and support in regard to stress-related conditions is based on Max Planck research
Through the prevention app, users gain better insights into their behavioral profile and are guided towards a more active lifestyle in a six-week program. It is not just exercise and sports that play a major role. Social and balancing activities are also central to the application.
“Our digital health program actiself enables the detection and treatment of stress-related symptoms to be taken to a new level. On the one hand, the app allows for a better assessment of the symptom profile, and on the other hand, it also offers intervention suggestions based on this,” explains Markus Friedrichs, who, after his work as a research associate at the Max Planck Institute, is now the managing director of Biomentric.
Combination of Psychiatric Research and Wearable Technology
The application was developed under the leadership of Dr. Victor Spoormaker. As a research group leader at the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry in Munich, he has long been studying the use of mobile devices for the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders. From a research project funded by the Max Planck Society, the startup company Biomentric emerged, which is now making its first prevention app, actiself, available. Max Planck Innovation, the technology transfer organization of the Max Planck Society, has licensed actiself and holds a stake in Biomentric.
Dr. Victor Spoormaker emphasizes: “Our approach integrates objective data and behavior measurement via wearables with well-founded insights from psychotherapeutic research. This way, we make globally available expertise in the field of psychological research accessible to a large number of affected individuals in the form of a low-threshold and scalable application.”
The technology has already been tested in the clinical environment of the Max Planck Institute and is being continuously developed further.
“With actiself, we see once again how the close integration of cutting-edge research and entrepreneurship creates innovations that provide real value to society. It is particularly gratifying to see how this new approach is now contributing to sustainably improving the quality of life for people with mental health impairments,” says Dr. Florian Kirschenhofer, senior startup manager at Max Planck Innovation.
Actiself was developed in collaboration with the Hamburg-based IT company Bornholdt Lee, which specializes in the technical implementation of digital health applications.
The download of the app can be found under www.actiself.com
About the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry
The Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry, which focuses primarily on research into depression and anxiety disorders, is one of the world's leading institutes in this field. Here, basic research is closely interlinked with clinical research: the Institute incorporates a 120-bed hospital, numerous specialist outpatient departments and three day units. Within these facilities, the modern research branches of genetics and proteomics are combined with the clinical analysis techniques of imaging and the measurement of brain function. The aim is to identify biomarkers of psychiatric and neurological disorders in a bid to better understand the molecular basis of these diseases. The knowledge obtained goes into the development of new therapies and drugs for the personalised medicine of tomorrow.
More information under www.psych.mpg.de
About Max Planck Innovation
Max Planck Innovation is responsible for the technology transfer of the Max Planck Society and, as such, the link between industry and basic research. With our interdisciplinary team we advise and support scientists of the Max Planck Institutes in evaluating their inventions, filing patents and founding companies. We offer industry a unique access to the innovations of the Max Planck Institutes. Thus, we perform an important task: the transfer of basic research results into products, which contribute to the economic and social progress.
More information under www.max-planck-innovation.com
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