Move over ‪Siri‬, there's a new intelligent virtual assistant in the works, but this one is specifically designed with ‪‎mental health‬ in mind. The new app called Booost, is designed by Mindbin Technologies, a new tech start-up who are aiming to increase the accessibility of mental health care.

The idea behind Booost, is that upon registering for the app, an avatar for the user is created, which the user then cares for and talks to, developing a relationship. Over time, the app learns about the user and is able to analyze their conversations to determine one's mood and especially if there are signs of distress present. If so, the app then suggests ways to seek help. The hope of the app is that it leads to more timely diagnoses and treatments, and helps address the high rates of undiagnosed and untreated ‪mental illness‬.

"The aim is to make it so Booost is “not just an app but a game, a friend,” says Nare Vardanyan, founder of Mindbin, who also describes the app as “a Siri with empathy… or a Tamagotchi with artificial intelligence.”
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Claiming an 80% accuracy of successful emotional detection, Booost works through a mood and a semantic engine which allocate sentiment values to words- ‘pleased’ being a weak positive, and ‘grief’ being a strong negative, for instance. This in turn allows the app to analyse the conversations it has with the user and determine their mental state. If an issue is detected, the app would then suggest avenues of address such as encouraging therapy or providing numbers to helplines, or notify guardians in the case of young children."  

For the full story click here:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/chentim/2016/08/03/siri-with-empathy-the-intelligent-app-thats-changing-mental-health-care/#350953013c31

PokemonGo has quickly become a worldwide craze in just a matter of days. Since the app was released however, news has broke about the slew of motor vehicle accidents, injuries including individuals falling off cliffs, and even criminal incidents involving robbing that have resulted out of playing the game. 

Despite all the negative media attention, the global phenomenon may also be beneficial, as those with mental health conditions such as ‪‎anxiety‬ and ‪‎depression‬ are finding the game to be exceedingly helpful and possibly even therapeutic. Specifically, in the article below, those with ‪‎social anxiety‬ disorder speak out about how ‪#‎PokemonGo‬ has helped them develop the courage and desire to leave their house and begin interacting with others...

"Dr. Ganz Ferrance, an Edmonton psychologist, said the game could work as a positive catalyst for people who suffer from mental illnesses like anxiety, depression and possibly obsessive compulsive disorder.

"When you have a game like this, you are providing a purpose and a structure for the individual when they go out," he said. "What it does is, in a sense, it kind of distracts them from the anxiety they would normally feel, it breaks up the cycle.

"The person then gets the experience of being able to be successful at what they've been avoiding.""

For the full story, click here: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/how-pokémon-go-can-help-fight-mental-illness-1.3682714

It is not unexpected that loneliness is experienced by older adults. New research, however, suggests that loneliness and social isolation have a similar effect on mortality as compared with smoking. The effects of loneliness are not only physical in nature. "Seniors that experience social isolation and loneliness are more likely to suffer from stress, depression, cognitive and functional decline, morbidity and death … Lonely seniors [are] 50% more likely to die earlier than seniors who felt meaningfully connected with others, even after results were adjusted for factors such as depression, socioeconomic status and existing health conditions." A new form of communication technology called InTouch is designed to help mitigate the social isolation often experienced by seniors. "It [InTouch] uses "asynchronous messaging" – that is, platforms that don't require both parties to communicate at the same time, such as email – multimedia and whatever medium the individual recipient prefers. InTouch allows family members to send video messages to each other and have them appear on televisions, computers or tablets, so that regardless of availability, loved ones can stay in touch." To read about this innovative program check out this article.