Echo Elements’ Post

LIFE - HEALTH AND WELLNESS Harvard-trained neuroscientist with 20+ years experience: 7 tricks I use to keep my memory sharp: Lisa Genova, Contributor CNBC International Published Tue, Mar 19 20247:15 AM EDT https://lnkd.in/gMpqpTYu I’ve spent 25 years studying the brain—I never do these 4 things that destroy our memory as we age A psychologist shares the 5 exercises she does to ‘stop overthinking everything’ It’s happened to just about everyone: You try to remember what happened last week, your Netflix password, your grocery list, where you parked your car or the name of that guy you see at the coffee shop — and just draw a blank. Memories can be tougher to access with time and age. It’s perfectly normal and not necessarily indicative of disease or illness, but it can still be unsettling. However, there are things you can do right now to make yourself more resistant to forgetting. As a Harvard-trained neuroscientist with more than 20 years of experience, when people ask how they can enhance their ability to remember, I like to share these strategies with them. Here are my most commonly used memory tricks. 1. See it: When you create a mental image of what you’re trying to remember, you add more neural connections to it. You’re deepening the associations, making the formation of that memory more robust, so you’ll better remember later. If you’re writing down something that you want to remember, write it in all caps, highlight it in pink marker or circle it. Add a chart or doodle a picture. Make what you’re trying to remember something you can easily see in your mind’s eye 2. Use your imagination: People with the best memories have the best imaginations. To help make a memory unforgettable, use creative imagery. Go beyond the obvious and attach bizarre, surprising, vivid, funny, physically impossible and interactive elements to what you’re trying to remember, and it will stick. For example, if I need to remember to pick up chocolate milk at the grocery store, for example, I might imagine Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson milking a chocolate brown cow in my living room. 3. Make it about you: I rarely endorse self-centeredness, but I make an exception when it comes to enhancing your memory. You are more likely to remember a detail about yourself or something that you did, than you are to retain a detail about someone else or something someone else did. So make what you’re learning unique to you. Associate it with your personal history and opinions, and you’ll strengthen your memory. 4. Look for the drama: Experiences drenched in emotion or surprise tend to be remembered: successes, humiliations, failures, weddings, births, divorces, deaths. Emotion and surprise activate your amygdala, which then sends a loud and clear message to your hippocampus: “Hey! What is going on right now is extremely important. Remember this!” 5. Practice makes perfect....Contd

Fortis Healthcare Launches AI-Powered 'Adayu' App For Mental Healthcare Fortis Healthcare is embarking on a groundbreaking endeavour to harness the potential of artificial intelligence in bolstering mental well-being and accessibility to mental health care services for patients by launching an AI-powered application. Introducing 'Adayu', a cutting-edge application offered by Adayu Mindfulness, a subsidiary of Fortis Healthcare Group, in collaboration with deep-tech company United We Care. This innovative platform aims to address the critical needs of mental healthcare by leveraging advanced AI technology. This collaboration is set to transform the accessibility of mental health services, making comprehensive care available at the touch of a button, he said. Dr Raghuvanshi said this initiative also aims at destigmatising mental health issues and enhancing the availability of care for those in need across the country. Dr. Samir Parikh, Consultant Psychiatrist and Chairperson, Fortis National Mental Health Program, Fortis Healthcare said that India’s mental health burden is estimated at USD 2-3 billion with about 1 in every 8 people estimated to be suffering from a mental health disorder in some form. #artificialintelligence #AdayuMindfulness #FortisHealthcare #UnitedWeCare #mentalhealth #DrAshutoshRaghuvanshi #DrSamirParikh

Nuance is important folks! Exploration and research on new ways to deliver treatment is a huge lever to create access to high-quality care.  This article discusses chatbots as an alternative to therapy to help the supply and demand imbalance of people needing mental health care. The article's headline doesn't encapsulate the nuances of the discussion (shocking) and the body misses a few key points about why new care delivery models are so important (as long as we are studying them rigrouously). This reminds me of other discussions of evidence-informed, non-therapy modalities (like health coaching Wave and peer support Obi Felten Flourish Health) that also ignore the reality that rigorous study of new modalities are crucial to help combat the mental health access crisis. We don't have enough therapists and need to know who needs what care at what time. 💙 Woebot Health and Wysa are both deeply dedicated to creating an evidence base for their scientifically informed products, and, this takes time. They have incredibly talented and responsible clinicians and researchers as founders, CCOs, and executives in Alison Darcy, Athena Robinson PhD, and Smriti Joshi leading this charge to create products that are far more ethically and rigorously researched than ANY therapy company that has achieved unicorn status. 💡 Regulation is great in theory, but does not ensure either the safety of patients or ethical behavior from companies. Having ethical, clinical leaders at the helm with accountable, robust quality control will go further than regulatory bodies that don't have the capacity or scope to truly regulate. This is an analog to licensure in therapy: just because someone has a license, does not mean they are good, effective, ethical, or follow best practices. It doesn’t mean they are being held accountable for quality or outcomes. In fact,  the onus is put on the patient or colleagues to report if there is an issue, which has a myriad of problems given the opaque nature of the therapy space.  Quality is not about regulation or licensure, it's about reportable measurement of outcomes, rigorous quality control, and robust research processes. What this article does get right, if you make it to the end, is that informed consent to the user is imperative. Clearly explaining what you are and are not, what evidence you have to support your care delivery model AND demonstrating your outcomes is what's best for patients. I'd love to see this standard from ALL MENTAL HEALTH companies, licensed, non-licensed, regulated and not regulated. #qualitycontrol #evidencebasedcare #research #mentalhealthishealth #measurementbasedcare

Cognitive assessment tests provide key insights into individuals’ cognitive abilities and can highlight areas of potential decline, enabling more personalised and effective care plans to improve their quality of life. 👉 https://zurl.co/SUtD #Health #Cognitive #Assessment

Thank you for the mention and appreciation of our work at Wysa Sarah Adler, PsyD . I am huge fan of you and your work at Wave & that of Alison Darcy Woebot Health, truly Inspiring. I really appreciate the insights you shared regarding the complexities of regulation and ethics in the digital mental health space especially for AI in mental health. It's a topic close to my heart, and your perspective truly resonates with the challenges we face in ensuring safe and ethical care for those we serve. Your analogy about licensure in traditional therapy hits the nail on the head. It's about the commitment to ethical practices, effective treatment, and continual improvement. I couldn't agree more that true quality in mental health care transcends regulatory standards. It's about being accountable, implementing rigorous quality control measures, and constantly striving to do better. As clinicians, we're not just service providers; we're gatekeepers of clinical safety and ethics. Your emphasis on the role of ethical clinical leaders is spot on. At Wysa, we've always believed that clinicians play a pivotal role in shaping the ethical landscape of digital mental health. Team Wysa, especially Jo Aggarwal Ramakant Vempati have walked the talk , setting high standards and ensuring that every interaction, whether with AI or human support, upholds the principles of safety, transparency, confidentiality, and respect and is rooted in rigorous research. And that there are clinicians working closely with each function be it content/AI or tech or even marketing and bizdeb acting as super egos if may say that ensuring only what is safe, right and helpful is released for the end user. Your words really highlight the importance of rigorous research and transparent communication, and it's a sentiment I wholeheartedly endorse . It's not just about what's trendy or convenient; it's about what's right for the individuals seeking support and guidance. Thanks again for sparking this crucial conversation. Your work as a thought leader in the ethics of digital mental health is truly inspiring, and I look forward to continuing to champion these principles together.

Text Message-Based mHealth Intervention More Effective Later in Day - mHealth Intelligence #mHealthInterventionTiming A recent study has found that text message-based mHealth interventions are more effective when sent later in the day, compared to earlier times. This finding highlights the importance of timing in healthcare communication strategies. #StudyFindings The study, conducted by researchers in the field of healthcare IT, analyzed the response rates of patients to text messages sent at different times of the day. The results showed that messages sent in the afternoon and evening had higher engagement and response rates compared to messages sent in the morning. #ImplicationsforHealthcareIT This finding has significant implications for healthcare IT professionals looking to implement mHealth interventions. By understanding the optimal timing for communication, healthcare organizations can improve patient engagement and outcomes. #FutureResearch ai.mediformatica.com #health #mhealth #depreion #anxiety #pandemic #covid #covid19 #found #study #textmeaging #california #cognitivebehavioraltherapy #digitalhealth #healthit #healthtech #healthcaretechnology @MediFormatica (https://buff.ly/49WuGJO)

+1 to Sarah Adler, PsyD on this controversial discussion topic, AND I'm still not totally convinced that we're on the right track with therapeutic chat-bots. As a former therapist who constantly witnessed depression and anxiety stemming from broad systemic and cultural failures, it is hard to see an LLM chat-bot as anything but a tautological paradox: An algorithm based on collective cultural text intended to somehow circumvent it's own foundation and offer an alternative presentation of support and validation. For a culture that is notoriously good at blaming individuals for their distress, it's not surprising to me that these chat-bots might initially mimic a listening ear, but then devolve to reflect the system that created them. The bottleneck in therapeutic support need prevalence is so real, and the jockeying of so many chat-bots for relevance in the "non-acute" field shows that many founders are thinking it could be the solution. But the current "workaround" for many current orgs is claiming they are "not therapy," when the intention is so clearly to step in when a therapist cannot. (But, hey! At least they won't get sued, and they don't have to answer to any legal oversight in the way a therapist would!) That means we've got therapeutic doublespeak, corporate legal protections as first priority over client health, and a tool that is not overwhelmingly successful unless there is a human-in-the-loop. Cynical, I know, but it's hard to believe this current AI path is the one that will ultimately support deep, human healing on a broad scale.

This is not the usual type of post I share, but I really felt the need to comment today on using chatbots for mental health support. One of the core principles of Eating Freely is that we are real people, helping real people, personally. When someone uses food as their self-soothing strategy - emotional eating or binge eating - they will over time become less social and more withdrawn. Fear of judgement, anxiety around eating with others, worry about what they can or cannot eat at the restaurant or party, distress over their weight and how others will perceive them... and that's without the secrecy and shame surrounding their emotional/binge eating itself. Many clients developed an unhelpful relationship with food because of a difficult or traumatic experience. Trauma also contributes to social isolation, lack of trust, a feeling of disconnection, and in some instances a belief of being unloveable, or unworthy of even basic care. A chat bot can never pick up on tears glistening in the eyes, a hand moving to the chest or belly, a flush creeping up the cheeks or neck, a shift in the chair that signals something being triggered, the way the eyes or mouth move or change whenever a particular person is spoken about. Less than 10% of our communication is verbal. I cannot tell you how many times clients cried in front of me over the years, and very often I said nothing when this happened. Instead I extended unconditional love and compassion to them, from my heart to theirs - and that's a felt sense that a client can barely articulate consciously, but they were aware that something was happening and it helped them. I remember the first time I was taught to consciously connect with someone else's energy, and respond non-verbally with my own energy - it was an absolute revelation to me. It brought me down a whole new path of learning and experience. Seven years on and counting, I am now a Reiki Master Teacher and have strongly developed my intuition. I bring this into our training in a practical way - supporting practitioners to develop their own third ear and third eye, to hear and see what is not being said or made visible. I am a deep sceptic of using any AI powered tools for mental health support. The technology is nowhere near developed enough to be able to effectively 'hear' and 'see' what is not being said. I believe that for some it does more harm than good - increasing their sense of disconnection and loneliness, how else could someone feel, trying to communicate their very personal, often secret or shameful struggles with a robot? Developers might say that bots are only designed for 'mild to moderate' levels of distress. The problem with this is that often what a client presents with - anxiety, low mood, loneliness - is only the tip of the iceberg. Eating freely is an international network of real people, helping real people, personally. This will not change any time soon. #edaw2024 #ai #specialisttherapist

Cognitive biases are common across all domains of life and can have a negative impact on our pursuit of health, wellbeing, and sustainable high-performance. Check out the latest Substack and subscribe! To learn more about polyvagal informed coaching for healthcare professionals and others in high demand domains, visit www.darindavidson.com. For the opportunity to obtain CE/CME credits through reflections related to this article, please see the instructions within the article. #healthcareathlete #polyvagalinformed