UCLA, Apple to Use mHealth, Telehealth Tools to Tackle Depression

UCLA is launching a three-year study, using telehealth and mHealth tools, that aims to give healthcare providers a better handle on how to diagnose and treat depression.

Researchers at the university, who are partnering with Apple, will use a connected health platform that includes smartwatches, a wearable sleep monitoring device and smartphones to remotely track sleep, activity heart rate and other daily metrics.

“Current approaches to treating depression rely almost entirely on the subjective recollections of depression sufferers,” Nelson Freimer, a professor of psychiatry at UCLA and the study’s principal investigator, said in a press release. “This is an important step for obtaining objective and precise measurements that guide both diagnosis and treatment.”

The study is part of the Depression Grand Challenge, a project launched by UCLA across more than 25 department to tackle the cause of more than 1 million suicides each year, and which can be found in one in four women and one in six men. Studies have found that have of those diagnosed with depression aren’t getting treatment.

Some 150 participants will be involved in the pilot phase of the study, in which they’ll receive an Apple Watch and Beddit sleep monitor and be asked to download an mHealth app on their smartphones. They’ll then be asked to share information through periodic questionnaires and interviews with researchers, who will also be gathering data from the mHealth devices.

The main phase of the study will take place in 2021 through 2023 and involve roughly 3,000 participants.

The study includes aspects of remote patient monitoring to account for the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

“UCLA and Apple have designed this study so that all aspects of participation can be accomplished remotely,” Freimer said in the press release. “The pandemic has heightened anxiety and depression globally, and has increased awareness of the importance of behavioral health to overall wellbeing. At the same time, physical distancing requirements have limited in-person mental health assessment and treatment, leading to expanded use and acceptance of telehealth. These changes highlight the importance of incorporating technologies like those to be tested in this study into clinical research and eventually into practice.”

“The analyses made possible by the scale, length and design of this study will provide the most extensive evidence available to date regarding the possible uses of digital tools for assessing and tracking behavioral health,” he added. “We envision a future in which these tools will become indispensable for depression sufferers and those providing them care.”