MUSC studying app to lower depression rates in cancer patients
CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCSC) - Experts at the Medical University of South Carolina are using a “therapist in your pocket” to help patients recover from depression.
A new avenue of long-term treatment is coming from an app called “Moodivate.” The hope is for the app to help s boost daily motivation by creating daily goals that s can complete with achievements such as digital badges.
Professor of Psychiatry at MUSC Dr. Jennifer Dahne came up with the idea for the app 15 years ago at the University of Maryland College Park. The app was launched about five years later with $200,000 in funding from the National Institute of Mental Health. The institute received $2 million from the institution.
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Dahne says the app was built to address a gap in depression treatment for patients along with the need for providers.
“A patient can go in and take a biweekly checkup for their symptoms of depression,” Dahne says. “This will give them kind of a sense of how they’re doing over time. So, if I go in, and I very quickly complete this checkup…this is also information that we can send back to the primary care provider through the electronic Health Record.”
An initial study with 649 participating primary patients at MUSC showed positive results in lowering depression rates. Dahne says the app assists with changing ’s daily activities to help anyone who is dealing with depression.
“When someone is suffering from depression, essentially they completely drop out of life,” Dahne says. “They stop spending time with people they love, they stop doing their hobbies, they stop doing just generally things that they enjoy that are important to them.”
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She is looking to apply the treatment method to cancer patients and survivors at the MUSC Hollings Cancer Center.
“Individuals who have cancer or who are cancer survivors, about a quarter of them have depression,” Dahne says. “There’s a massive need for depression treatment among cancer survivors and, again, there just are not enough mental health trained professionals, specifically within the oncology space to treat all of those patients.”
Dahne says study experts are working on a new clinical trial with just under 300 cancer patients at the cancer center. An additional $3 million in funding from the National Cancer Institute is going toward the initiative.
The app is currently on the app stores for IOS and Android devices. Anyone interested in using the tool gets a free one-week trial before there is a monthly subscription charge of about $15.
More information on the study can be found on the MUSC website.
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