Singapore software firm develops AI that identifies depressive symptoms among seniors

by SEA Wave
SEA Wave - Singapore Mental Health AI
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Mental health is a worrying concern now more than ever. According to the Singapore Longitudinal Ageing Study in 2012, one in five adults aged 75 experiences signs of depression, while those living alone are twice as likely to develop depressive symptoms. This already existing issue is further exacerbated by the effects of the pandemic when mobility is limited, physical interaction is discouraged, and worrying about health, both for oneself and loved ones, is prevalent.

The pandemic prompted many establishments to shift to a virtual platform, including mental health counselling sessions. However, virtual counselling sessions have made it more difficult to accurately diagnose patients.

According to Anthony Tay, chairman of Lions Befrienders, ​​a social service agency that aims to provide friendship and care for seniors, “We have introduced virtual counselling, but reduction in visual and auditory verbal cues may make it harder to detect emotions.”

To combat this, Opsis Emotion, a leading provider of software solutions for facial expression analysis and emotion recognition in Singapore, has launched an AI software that could help mental health counsellors with diagnosing patients with depression and anxiety.

The software acts as a supplementary tool to virtual counseling by recording and measuring non-verbal cues of the person, such as responses and facial expressions. At the end of the session, the program will display a ​​heat map of the participant’s positive and negative emotions.

The technology looks promising, with its clinical trial last August 2020 showing 85% accuracy when compared with assessments made by counsellors who engaged the participants.

“The advances in artificial intelligence such as facial emotions detection will assist our staff in screening for mental health issues and enable our seniors to receive earlier and better care,” said Tay.

The technology is in its pilot phase for the next two years through a community-driven initiative that specifically targets seniors and has a $190,000 funding from ​​Temasek Foundation.

Temasek Foundation Deputy Chairman, Richard Magnus, also said that mental health in Singaporean culture is not always talked about and the software could help address that.

“We are culturally shy to share our mental health problems. Our resilient seniors especially keep this condition away from their children so as not to burden them. Facial emotion analysis has tremendous potential to help us detect mental health issues accurately and address them early,” said Magnus.

Throughout its pilot phase, social workers, counsellors and case managers from Lions Befrienders will test the program through one-on-one and group counselling sessions with their community of seniors as well as group screenings. They will also be making their own observations and assessments and compare this with data from the software to determine its accuracy and effectiveness.

Featured photo from The Straits Times

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