Mental health
A public inquiry is considering emergency guidance on a camera-based patient-monitoring system used by half of England's mental health trusts, after families alleged it has replaced direct observation, with fatal consequences for some patients. Evidence submitted to the inquiry indicates that Oxevision has been adopted by 50 per cent of mental health trusts in England. [...]
Smartphone ownership at age 12 was linked to higher rates of eating disorder symptoms by age 14 in a study of nearly 9,000 US adolescents. Among children who owned a phone at 12, 24 per cent reported at least one eating disorder symptom two years later. By comparison, less than 16 per cent of those [...]
Digital mental health company Psyomics has appointed experienced US healthcare executive Raj Malik to its Board as the business grows in the UK and focuses on international expansion. Raj brings more than 30 years’ experience across digital health, technology, law and business leadership. He has built and scaled businesses in the US, the UK and [...]
Plans to limit formal ADHD diagnosis have been criticised as “rationing” NHS care ahead of a government review expected next week. The review is expected to recommend that people with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder symptoms should not automatically receive a formal diagnosis, but instead be triaged and offered support based on their needs. Under the [...]
New Zealand has approved MDMA for treating severe PTSD, becoming the second country after Australia to permit its use for the condition. The approval was granted by New Zealand's pharmaceutical regulator, Medsafe, and follows Australia's 2023 decision to approve psychedelics for PTSD and treatment-resistant depression. Two psychiatrists have been authorised to prescribe pharmaceutical-grade [...]
AI models developed using one million health-related Reddit threads matched human raters, suggesting they could support faster mental health triage. Researchers spent two years building a database of mental health narratives and training two AI models, PaLM 2 and AutoML, to analyse real-world accounts shared on Reddit. They linked language used in the posts to [...]
Selena Gomez has asked a court to dismiss a fraud lawsuit brought by investors in mental health startup Wondermind, calling the allegations legally deficient. Gomez, 34, filed the motion on Wednesday in Delaware federal court after being named in a lawsuit earlier this month alleging fraud and breach of contract. The complaint also names her [...]
A team of about 20 colleagues from healthcare software company Agilio will walk the Thames Path Ultra Challenge this September, aiming to raise £10,000 for the suicide prevention charity Ripple. The firm, which supplies software for dental, veterinary, pharmacy and primary care settings, will take on the challenge in support of Ripple Suicide Prevention Charity. [...]
Sword Health is set to acquire Headspace as it expands further into behavioural health, according to public documents. The acquisition is due to take effect on September 14. Details of the transaction remain limited and neither company had responded to requests for comment. New York-based Sword Health began in musculoskeletal care and has since expanded [...]
Digital mental health company Psyomics has secured a place on the Government’s £14 billion G-Cloud 15 framework, giving NHS and other public-sector organisations a more streamlined route to procure its technology; beseen. The move supports the wider adoption of Psyomics’ technology across UK healthcare, as the company looks to expand its work with NHS mental [...]
