September 4, 2023
What if it had been attainable to foretell and warn of despair like we forecast extreme climate? Thunderstorms should not predicted by will increase in thunderstorms, which is how we at the moment predict despair — by monitoring signs over time. However as an alternative, meteorologists monitor options and environmental fluctuations, pointing to approaching modifications to tell the general public to allow them to put together for the approaching storm. Equally, researchers at Leiden College are monitoring multimodal knowledge of contributors to assist establish early warning indicators of depressive episodes with the aim to facilitate early, personalised prevention.
Predicting and Stopping Melancholy
Melancholy is a standard and debilitating affliction. On condition that solely 50% of sufferers enhance below preliminary therapy1,2, consultants agree that prevention is the simplest technique to change despair’s international illness burden. The WARN-D research, a 5-year analysis mission led by Affiliate Professor Dr. Eiko Fried at Leiden College, is utilizing the Garmin vívosmart® 4 health tracker to observe 2,000 college students within the Netherlands for warning indicators of despair, which may result in prevention sooner or later.
Learning generally is a tense time, and a few college students expertise psychological well being issues akin to despair throughout their schooling. To grasp these stressors and experiences higher, the research is without doubt one of the first on this planet to actually concentrate on the each day lives of scholars, utilizing smartphones and Garmin health trackers as knowledge assortment instruments. The collected knowledge will assist researchers to construct the personalised early warning system WARN-D, which can be obtainable totally free as a smartphone app.
Garmin’s Position in Well being and Exercise Monitoring
The researchers observe the contributors for years and attempt to predict upcoming depressive episodes based mostly on the collected knowledge. To do that, contributors put on a Garmin vívosmart® 4 health tracker 24/7, reply each day questions on their smartphone for the primary 3 months and sync their knowledge utilizing the Garmin Join™ smartphone app. The Garmin Well being API collects the information and transfers it to the analysis group through the Fitrockr platform. The vívosmart® 4 health tracker will report sleep phases and length, exercise, coronary heart charge, stress, and Physique Battery™3. Researchers imagine that sleep knowledge, particularly, could also be predictive of upcoming transitions into psychological well being issues.
For the researchers at Leiden College, Garmin provided an inexpensive expertise package deal that helps compliance with strict European privateness legal guidelines, which is of important significance with delicate private knowledge.
About Fitrockr and Garmin Well being
Fitrockr is a product suite of Digital Rebels GmbH — a software program firm based mostly in Berlin. Its analysis and analytics platform permits organisations to simply handle and synchronise Garmin smartwatches with entry to high-resolution uncooked knowledge, impartial internet hosting, real-time knowledge streams, and direct evaluation and export. Fitrockr is without doubt one of the deepest built-in expertise implementations of the Garmin Well being API and SDK, offering Garmin Well being company options since 2018.
For extra data, go to Fitrockr at www.fitrockr.com or be taught extra about Garmin Well being Enterprise Well being Options at www.garmin.com/well being.
Americas Garmin Well being Analysis Grant Powered by Fitrockr
Garmin Well being and Fitrockr are additionally proud to assist revolutionary analysis via grant applications that present the instruments to conduct analysis research based mostly on well being knowledge from Garmin smartwatches. Whether or not it’s entry to high-resolution uncooked knowledge, impartial knowledge internet hosting or full wearable machine management, Garmin merchandise assist advance well being analysis fields in a sustainable method.
Researchers can begin making use of for this grant on Sept 1, 2023. The deadline to use is Nov 30 .
All grant winners will obtain 5 Garmin wearables, three months of limitless entry to the Fitrockr platform for as much as 50 customers and a winner’s certificates.
Need to be taught extra about associated tasks? Then learn this weblog about how knowledge from Garmin health trackers help researchers in panic assault prediction.
Garmin units should not designed or meant to observe or diagnose ailments or any medical circumstances. Discover data on metric accuracy right here.
1 Cuijpers, P., Karyotaki, E., Reijnders, M., & Huibers, M. J. H. (2018). Who advantages from psychotherapies for grownup despair? A meta-analytic replace of the proof meta-analytic replace of the proof. Cognitive Behaviour Remedy, 6073, 1–40. https://doi.org/10.1080/16506073.2017.1420098
2 Khan, A., & Brown, W. A. (2015). Antidepressants versus placebo in main despair: An summary. World Psychiatry, 14, 294–300. https://doi.org/10.1002/wps.20241
3 See Garmin.com/ataccuracy