Why we do not need for mental health applications

Thousands of mobile applications promise to reduce the symptoms of stress and anxiety, develop the ability to concentrate and to save us from being overloaded. But do they work? And always there is interference in the mental activity safe?

Many experts in the field of mental health agree that nothing can replace the human touch. others considerThat for smartphones, and the intervention of technology in our lives - the future. In an application to invest millions. But is it effective?

John Toros (John Torous), a graduate student at Harvard Medical School, studied psychiatry, the past few years investigated in order to maintain mental health applications. Recently, he turned for help to the American Psychiatric Association, to assess the commercial applications for smartphones and develop recommendations for their use.

According to Toros, entrepreneurs invested in the application for the psyche, because they are easier to bring to market than the application of other medical fields. In cases of consciousness and subconsciousness little objective evaluation of markers, changes are recorded, depending on the patient's feelings. It is difficult to understand how and what affects the mental health of the user. How to measure the improvement in mood, for example? And is it important to measure it? application type

increased interest is another reason - the ability to customize the platform with feedback, that is, to make an application with virtual consultations, conscious meditation and so on.

The main question is whether the app really help to cope with depression and bipolar disorder. But this topic is not just high-quality, randomized, double-blind studies. Most of the studies paid for by manufacturers, that is, the question of impartiality is not. In addition, these studies involved, as a rule, less than 20 people. They report that the application of interest. But the interest of patients does not say anything about the effectiveness of these tools.

Most application developers are turning to methods of cognitive-behavioral therapy, which aims to address the current problems and the change of attitude towards the situation.

Itself has proven the effectiveness of therapy. But the applications based on it - no.

If use is questionable whether it can harm the application? Find the answer to this question is difficult. But in applications no individual approach to each patient. In addition, the program collected a large amount of personal data that are not always well protected (and even can be used for commercial purposes).

Just look at the conditions of use of such applications. They are full of mental terms, behind which hide information that the application is not related to medicine and psychology.

researchers found on iTunes more than 700 applications for care of. Of these, only 23 actually contain exercises or educational information. Only one application was based on empirical evidence. By the way, John Toros considered good in terms of security and transparency of the application conditions, designed United States Department of Veterans Affairs.

So that the majority of applications for the mind and the brain - it's a black box. Decide whether you want to put such experiments on themselves.