A team of scientists from the United States has created a mobile application that allows the detection of mental health diseases through an artificial intelligence system. A research group at Dartmouth University, in New Hampshire, has developed a tool that identifies the symptoms of depression, for example, solely from the images it captures of a person’s face.
The app is called MoodCapture and it combines facial recognition with artificial intelligence to detect signs of a possible mental health illness, even before the patient themselves notices that they are not completely well.
The system is very simple: the application connects to the mobile’s front camera throughout the day and captures several images of the user. It then processes and analyzes them to detect behaviors or gestures that are associated with the early symptoms of depression or some other illness related to mental health.
It takes into account, for example, the movement of the eyes, the position of the head, the rigidity of the rictus or the clothes one is wearing. But it also studies other environmental elements, such as whether the user usually stays in illuminated places or whether they spend much more time alone than with others.
So far, researchers have tested the application on nearly 200 people and it has demonstrated a very high reliability rate: the system detected signs of depression in three out of four patients who, in the end, ended up suffering from it. The team of scientists advances that they will not commercialize the application until it reaches a higher success rate.
The researchers remember that, in general, people still find it very difficult to go to the psychologist, and that is why they trust that the application will help diagnose diseases that now go unnoticed.
