BLog
Well-being, Tech, Culture
Industrial Safety in the Air and elsewhere
Imagine that you are in a plane, thinking the flight is going smoothly but in reality both pilots in the cockpit have fallen asleep. Does it sound like a Hollywood scenario? Sadly enough it happens in real life with the most recent example being when an Ethiopian Air...
The Mental Health of athletes is not properly supported
In the last 12 months, the issue of the mental health of athletes has burst into the public eye via numerous high profile media stories. In professional, amateur, and college sports, the number of suicides and athletes suffering from a Mental Health issue is...
Anomaly Detection for Non-Normal Data
Unsupervised, Multivariate Statistical Anomaly Detection for Data with Complex Distributions
You can’t always believe your eyes: where AI falls flat
From the dawn of time, humans have tried to understand each other by looking at their faces and listening to their voices. It has led to the development of the practice of Physiognomy, which means assessing a person’s character or personality from their outer...
On Killing Remotely: The Psychology of Killing with Drones. Book review
It’s very easy to develop beliefs based on shaky assumptions or half-baked facts. I can readily admit that my beliefs were wrong when it came to UAS (Unmanned Aircraft Systems) pilots, the challenges they face, and how their mental health can have a wide range of...
The Economic Cost of Mental Illness on Corporate Operations in the UK, USA, and Canada
In a 2008 editorial in The American Journal of Psychiatry, Thomas R. Insel M.D. estimated that, “serious mental illness is associated with an annual loss of earnings totaling $193.2 billion” within the US economy. His analysis is not an anomaly. A diverse range of...
API Technology: the Future of Reducing Mental Health Stigmatization
We say that we live in a better world than we did yesterday, but is that true? A few weeks ago, one of the most prominent tennis players in the world was fined and threatened with disqualification when she refused to participate in post-match press conferences. Naomi...
CAGE Questionnaire – Pros and Cons
The CAGE questionnaire, developed in 1968, is a brief assessment containing four questions that is used by doctors to check for signs of potential alcohol dependency (alcohol abuse or alcoholism). The acronym, CAGE, makes the questions easy to remember: Have you ever...
Trail Making Test – Pros and Cons
The Trail Making Test, created by neuropsychologist Ralph Reitan in the 1940s, is a neuropsychological test of visual attention and task switching. The assessment consists of two parts which require the participant to connect a set of 25 dots with accuracy in as short...
Fatigue Severity Scale – Pros and Cons
The Fatigue Severity Scale (FSS) was designed in 1989 by Doctors Lauren B. Krupp, Nicolas G. LaRocca, Alfred D. Steinberg, and nurse Joanne Muir-Nash. It is a 9-item scale that measures the severity of fatigue and its effect on the participant’s daily activities and...
Assessing the Reliability of the Epworth Sleepiness Scale
The Epworth Sleepiness Scale, otherwise known as the ESS is a self-administered assessment consisting of 8 questions. The questionnaire asks respondents to rate their chances of falling asleep or dozing off while participating in eight different activities, on a...
The PHQ2/PHQ9 Assessment – How reliable is it?
The PHQ-9 and PHQ-2 assessments are both components of the longer Patient Health Questionnaire, which offers psychologists a concise way to self-administer an evaluation to assess depression. The assessment incorporates DSM-IV depression criteria, which are clinically...
All the Clues Doctors May Miss During an Online Visit
Telehealth has become more and more prevalent, especially in the COVID-19 pandemic era, where visiting a medical care center in person may be more difficult or dangerous for many. Telehealth visits made up almost 40% of all primary care visits between April 2020 to...
COVID-19 and Mental Health – How have first responders been impacted?
A 2018 study conducted by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) reported that 30% of all first responders have some type of mental health illness or struggle due to their careers. This statistic has been pushed since the pandemic, as...
Don’t let data fool you: The importance of cross-checking information
As Humans we understand the dangers of making a decision based on an incomplete set of information. A limited set of data points can quickly send us down the wrong (and very biased) path. And still, most of the data that makes its way into algorithms is likely to be...
How do perceived benefits impact your app’s retention
According to a study from the NIH, there are over 259,000 health-related applications (apps) available in app stores. In such a crowded place, how can you make sure that your app stands out and grows? Putting technology considerations and gamification techniques...
Healthcare Reimbursement: Mental Health is Not Treated Equal
A study done by healthcare consulting company Milliman analyzed millions of medical records and claims from major insurers that cover almost 42 million people. The results they found were disappointing, clearly highlighting the disparities that exist between the...
Supporting Clinician Wellbeing: How COVID-19 Has Affected Healthcare Workers
Especially during the pandemic, clinicians have been a crucial part of our healthcare system and society, and their well-being is essential in providing good quality, safe patient care services. However, even since before the pandemic, clinicians have been...
Telehealth Counseling – Is Virtual Therapy Here to Stay?
The COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent shutdown has caused many setbacks and barriers in the healthcare community. In particular, counseling and therapy services have had to adapt their practices to technological platforms in order to reach their patients from a safe...
How to rethink mental health assessments?
Mental health disorders are an issue for more than nine hundred million people worldwide. The impact on this group is tremendous but the impact on the Health Industry that is trying to serve them is overwhelming. That’s because the Health Industry relies on mental...
New Skin Patch: the Future of Health Monitors?
Health monitors take various shapes and forms in our daily lives. Devices such as Apple watches, FitBits, and other health applications/accessories have become very popular for tracking heart rate, steps, and other health concerns. However, a new invention could...
Is Spot the next Talos? What mythology can teach us about AI
Each new video featuring Spot accomplishing amazing displays of agility and power also brings up many questions about Ethics and the future of robotics. Turns out a good place for answers is the past. When wondering if Spot is the next Talos, mythology can teach us...
COVID-19’s Toll on Teen Mental Health
A recent study titled “The Impact of COVID-19 on Pediatric Mental Health” has revealed the extreme detriment that the pandemic has had on teens and young adults, highlighting the most affected age group being between 13 to 18 years old. Mental health has been a...
Are we turning athletes into robots by using performance data in real-time and not letting the athletes decide for themselves.
Unless you are into cycling, you likely have missed an interesting discussion that started a few days ago when the manager of a professional cycling team made the bold claim that technology is turning riders into robots. Whether in cycling or sports at large, are we...