To come up with a serious overview of the ten innovations in mental health expected in 2023, the French Forbes interviewed seventeen leading experts in digital solutions for mental health. For millions of people concerned around the world, those features are aimed at providing a more precise mental health, one that is more personalized, preventive, and participatory. Here are the findings:
1: Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality and Metaverse.
“Particularly used in situations of phobias, post-traumatic stress disorders, addictions, eating disorders, or the need for relaxation, TERVs (therapies by exposure to virtual reality) are democratizing healthcare services, due to efficiency and non-drug approach”.
2: Web3
“The first interest here lies in the protection of health data, in that web3 guarantees control of it to users and patients, unlike web2, which is based on exchanges of flows that can be exploited for commercial purposes”.
3: Connected objects
“Portable and ambient, these polymorphic sensors will indeed soon be usable to observe in real time almost all the patient’s parameters and constants in real time and in real life, behavior and environment”
4: Facial recognition
“The visual observation of patients during a consultation or during a therapy makes it possible to extract digital markers in addition to conventional biological markers. From their behavior, additional information on the state of mental health of patients is thus deduced”.
5: Voice recognition
“The analysis of the patient’s speech and voice (speed, spontaneity, hesitation, etc.) proves to be very useful in helping practitioners to ensure attentive and close monitoring. It is an easy to collect, inexpensive, and non-invasive signal”
6: UX Design
“Because the people concerned are going through a difficult period and are looking for support, it is essential that the solutions show a good psychological understanding of the colors, the cognitive load, and that the courses are thought of as real positive routines”.
7: Social Networks
“Often singled out for their sometimes harmful effects on mental health, “social media” platforms nevertheless have a major role to play in the democratization and change of perception of certain mental disorders”
8: Medical Neurostimulation
“Here, we are talking more specifically about rTMS (Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation). This medical therapeutic act aims to modulate the metabolism of certain areas of the brain to improve the symptoms of neuropsychiatric pathologies such as depression, obsessive-compulsive disorders, or neuropathic pain”.
9: Chatbots (or conversational agents)
“As soon as chatbots become more sophisticated and use conversational artificial intelligence bricks, their potential is increased tenfold. Natural language processing and generation allow freer and more complex exchanges. Thus, chatbots can serve as first-level psychological support”.
10: Digital therapies or DTX
“It is fundamental to specify that they are not destined to be autonomous, but well integrated into a broader care ecosystem”