HOW EMOTIONAL AI IS CHANGING THE MENTAL HEALTHCARE PROFILE?

AI as Medical Assistants

Emotion AI can free up doctors to work more with their patients by analyzing patient records and generating reports based on the data, handling administrative tasks, and even assisting with diagnosis or intervention. This can help patients to have better and customized treatment as per their needs, medical conditions and preference without any necessity of divulging the same to the examiner. The software can help patients with mental health issues by using voice analysis. It can also address and regulate their emotions better even when they are under a severely stressful or traumatic state.

One such application is Affectiva. It uses a webcam to measure a person’s heart rate without wearing a sensor by tracking color changes in the person’s face, which pulses each time the heartbeats.

 AI as Emotional Support

A ‘nurse bot’ not only reminds older patients on long-term medical programs to take their medication but also converses with them every day to monitor their overall wellbeing. Along with this, they make sure to interact with people with recent accident history or depression to elevate their mood levels. Moreover, it gives a definitive picture of how a patient responds to new medications.

 

AI as Chatbot

In a society where mental illness is stigmatized and considered as a taboo, seeking medical help is challenging for people. AI helps in closing this gap by chatbots where physical accessibility is not possible. Researchers have discovered that people are comfortable in talking to avatars than a therapist. Not only that, but these chatbots also allow people to talk about their issues any time of the day or night, anywhere around the world.

These chatbots are fed with mock transcripts from counselors, physicians that allow them to deal with a wide array of issues. Some of the chatbots offer either free or low monthly subscription fees. This can help tremendously to people with lower incomes.

Mood tracking apps like Woebot, which is created by a team of Stanford psychologists and AI experts, uses brief daily chat conversations, mood tracking, curated videos, and word games to help people manage mental health.

 Using AI to Identify At-Risk Person

Social Media Networking Sites like Facebook use AI to monitor posts to detect signs of a user’s depression. This could spot the disorder three months before those people were formally diagnosed by health care providers. An fMRI scan used AI to analyze brain scans and spot likely cases to have Bipolar Disorder and major depressive disorder with 92.4% accuracy.

Adopting measures to deal with the increasing number of mental health problems is the need of the hour. When a person finds themselves under excruciating strain and pressure or is a victim of communal negligence existing in a society where having depression or any mental disorder is met by raised eye-brows of contempt and ignorance, it can harm them to unknowable ends. According to a paper published, one in seven Indians were affected by mental disorders of varying severity in 2017. If the inclusion of emotional AI can provide them with much needed help and lighten the country’s medical expenses, it is beneficial to invest in this technology as soon as possible.