Smartphones To Monitor Schizophrenics 99
the_newsbeagle writes Psychiatrists have realized that they can collect vast amounts of data about their patients using smartphone apps that passively monitor the patients as they go about their daily business. A prototype for schizophrenia patients is being tested out now on Long Island. The Crosscheck trial will look at behavior patterns (tracking movement, sleep, and conversations) and correlate them with the patient's reports of symptoms and moods; researchers hope the data will reveal the "signature" of a patient who is about relapse and therefore needs help.
The onion predicted it (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe we should have explained to psychiatrists that Is The Government Spying On Schizophrenics Enough? [youtube.com] was a joke, not a roadmap.
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[David Brent Voice] Words with the same first six letters are synonyms. Fact.
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Hah! I'm nicking that.
The onion predicted it. (Score:1)
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I AM NOT PARANOID!!!!
Because if you are THEY notice it immediately!
controlling words (Score:1)
They are psychiatrists and yet oblivious to their own word choice pyschology.
researchers hope the data will reveal the "signature" of a patient who is about relapse and therefore needs help.
These people are still human beings with dignity aren't they? or are they just diseased chattled to be mitigated?
How about:
researchers hope the data will reveal the "signature" of a patient who is possibly experiencing symptoms and therefore might want help.
If they understood anything about the patients they are supposedly helping, they would know that your attitude and intentions makes a big damn difference.
Re:controlling words (Score:5, Insightful)
These people are still human beings with dignity aren't they? or are they just diseased chattled to be mitigated?
When, say, your daughter suddenly takes off for Florida, convinced that she will succeed in her new life as a monkey trainer, because the voices in her head said so, then she does need help. Period.
There are blunt ways to put it, and sugar coated ways to put it, but the brain is malfunctioning and it needs help.
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Your brain is malfunctioning and you need help. You don't believe me? That's because your brain is malfunctioning and you need help!
The entire fraudulent pseudoscience of psychiatry depends upon circular reasoning? You only think it does, because your brain is malfunctioning and you need help!!
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Oh , a little left brain hiccup from time to time never hurt anyone. But it does convince one that the television is watching them, the government is make-believe and the closet has an entrance to hell. Oddly you end up making a lot of left turns doing anything, but the medication is to die for.
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...But it does convince one that the television is watching them, the government is make-believe and the closet has an entrance to hell.
Except for the 'closet' part, that sounds like a disturbingly accurate description of today's reality...
Re:controlling words (Score:4)
Your brain is malfunctioning and you need help. You don't believe me? That's because your brain is malfunctioning and you need help!
The entire fraudulent pseudoscience of psychiatry depends upon circular reasoning? You only think it does, because your brain is malfunctioning and you need help!!
Except that schizophrenics generally know that their brain is malfunctioning. And they're not happy about it. They may reject help, but they know they're not normal.
Now when a state-appointed psychiatrist declares that you are insane because you don't love this most perfect of all nations, that's a different matter.
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Indeed, I used to be schizoaffective and I made the mistake of coming in for help. The treatments themselves seemed to be designed to make the problem worse as they mostly underscored how differently my brain works from the model they're using. They also were trying to force me to buy into a reality that was just as non-existent as the one they were trying to get me to give up.
The point here is that if doctors want to get people to come in for treatment, they need to exercise some judgment and professionali
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Sometimes people trying to help you can't unless you let them. Try finding a good therapist (which might take a few attempts) and then once you find someone you can develop trust with try working with doctors. But remember, when your perception of things is distorted, it can be easy to see malice or incompetence when honest and qualified people face a difficult problem like mental illness.
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What I found was that they did a shit job of listening. And anything I did tell them would wind up on my record where it would be used as rationalization not to listen in the future. The fact that this would wind up in my record is the main reason why I'd be very suspicious of letting them monitor me. The fact that the data might get leaked would be of secondary concern.
There are definitely good doctors out there, but wading through the incompetents is a challenge. Some health insurers don't even employ people that are competent to treat this sort of major disorder.
The whole field of mental health is about at the level of making fire by banging 2 rocks together, and all the fancy coats and drugs and gadgets and medical wards don't make it any less so, anymore than the proverbial lipstick on a pig. I've seen a lot of improvement over the last 100 years (no, not by living through all of them!) but there's a long, long way to go.
Mental health treatments are appallingly subject to fads, and have been all the way back to Freud and Jung. I'm not totally intimate with the fi
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Re:controlling words (Score:4, Interesting)
>The entire fraudulent pseudoscience of psychiatry
You bought this andi-psychology Scientology crap? Fuck you.
I was born with an inability to synthesize serotonin, and lived in a Hell of chronic severe major depression for 54 years until somebody invented a drug (Viibryd) that turned my life from hopeless anxious suffering to a thriving and much more pleasant existence that now makes me glad that I DIDN'T kill myself all through those years.
Some psychology is bogus, some practioners are bad at it or quacks, but not all psychology can be dismissed because you don't want to address your own issues and find denial and anti-scientism an effective avoidance technique.
Again, fuck you.
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Re:controlling words (Score:4, Interesting)
I am doubtful of the smartphones role in this. One must be able to carry the phone without believing it is SPYING on you for the men who want to control you.
I can see smartphones being discarded or traded and the best laid plans of ex-spurts falling to poo.
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Socialising with the mentally ill can be difficult but it's often
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And now let's try without the thinkofthechildren strawman, can we?
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I wish psychiatrists could stop you from getting upset on other people's behalves.
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Good psychologists offer therapy for that.
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"Getting upset on other people's behalves" - isn't that called 'empathy'?
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Nope. It's called "having no life of your own so you feel the pressing urge to meddle with those of others".
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I'm sure that when they develop sensors to detect attitude and intentions the psychiatrists will avail themselves of it.
From what I gathered in the article this was about patients and/or their families coming to a doctor for help and using this as a tool for the doctor and patient to manage the patient's condition together.
This reminds of the article about Target's ability to tell if a shopper is pregnant (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2102859/How-Target-knows-shoppers-pregnant--figured-teen-fathe
Sure, that will help (Score:3, Insightful)
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It may seem like a joke, but I have met people diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia for whom wearing loud clothes makes it rational that everybody is watching them, and alleviates the anxiety somewhat. If people get used to the fact that they are being observed 24/7, that their phones are always tapped by NSA/GCHQ, and that all their web activity is being watched to see if they are doing anything wrong, then it will make the paranoid delusions more rational. We'll never know for sure how far we are from
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There was a great writeup a while back which I haven't found in years, but described various neurotransmitters and what low/normal/high levels of each correspond to in terms of subjective experience. I could kind of see how this would work.... if you naturally are in a state of mind where you interpret everyones actions as relating to you "they are all looking at me" ...then having a story to connect that to "of course they are, this shirt is amazing"; then it changes the character of the experience.
Wow the
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Yeah, just 'cause you're paranoid doesn't mean THEY ain't out to get you!
Dangerous idea; locking patients up in a dragnet (Score:1)
I think it's important to realize here that a lot of people with psychological problems will refuse to get any help if psychiatrists in general are going to insist installing spyware on their wearable electronics. Maybe not so much because they don't trust the psychiatrist with the information, but more because it's relatively easy for others (government, police, spouses and family with technologically smart kids or in general people who don't have the same context as the psychiatrist has on his patient) to
Useful Technology (Score:5, Interesting)
As someone who used to answer the 911 psych calls for our volunteer FD in a rural area, a voluntary app like this could be really useful. Where we lived back then first responders were the only regular checks a lot of the psych cases ever got. By the time someone called 911, they were way off the sanity reservation. Then law enforcement got involved and packed them off to primary care. They'd stabilize on their meds, the hospital would cut them loose because they didn't have insurance, sometimes with a couple days worth of meds, and we'd start the cycle all over again. Anything that would alert medical personnel that someone was having a problem and find a way to get them some help before we got a call that they were chasing cows around in the pasture bare ass naked would be a good thing.
I learned that rural areas are full of crazy people because the cost of living is lower and they could be crazy and not bother as many people. It was kind of surprising to find out how many of our neighbors were genuinely, seriously out there howling at the moon loony tunes (technical medical jargon).
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Wait, we're not supposed to do that? :-P
My biggest concern is if someone is getting a little into the area where they're going to start exhibiting some of the symptoms of schizophrenia, remembering to bring their phone with them isn't going to be a priority.
And then I question if this only really helps well funded/supported, well insured people or not. Not everybody who suffers from schizophrenia has really great access t
I thought they already did (Score:1)
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I wonder if that's some kind of "humoring the patient". Next, we'll start a program where we will call those pretending to be Napoleon "Sire".
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Umm... because that's how he wanted to be addressed?
Schizophrenia, not schizophrenic (Score:1)
Um, not to be an ass, but a schizophrenic is someone who is suffering the symptoms of schizophrenia in a major way. When we're stable we simply suffer from schizophrenia. If someone is schizophrenic they definitely need to be hospitalized, but if it's just schizophrenia, not so much.
Not already? (Score:1, Funny)
R.D. (Score:2, Insightful)
If you're not schizophrenic, you're not paying attention.
You think that's a good idea? (Score:3)
It already takes a lot of work to convince paranoid schizophrenics to trust their psychiatrist enough to open up to him. And now that person who they finally tentatively trust should start to do exactly what the patients think their "enemies" are doing to them?
Really? That's a good idea?
I guess I'm further from understanding the human psyche and psychology altogether than I thought...
Analysis (Score:1)
WELDING 101 (Score:2)
I feel like the summary is missing it's ending (Score:1)
Wait, isn't that what Facebook is for? (Score:1)
First thing: break your phone (Score:1)
When my schizophrenic brother was having his attacks, he used to think the wiring in the walls, appliances, metal shelves, silverware, anything metal was either talking to him (bleed-through he calls it) or emitting radiation. Several violent episodes where this went on and on.
So during an episode, pretty much the first thing he'd do was throw all these items out in the yard and break his cellphone in half. You'd know for sure he was having issues was when the phone went dead.
Lost an iPhone and sever
1984 (Score:2)
The "Influencing Machine" in Schizophrenia (Score:4, Informative)
My phone is a giraffe (Score:1)
So I don't know what you're talking about.
Where have they been for the last 10 years? (Score:3)
Google, the NSA, and others have realized that they can collect vast amounts of data about people using smartphone apps that passively monitor them as they go about their daily business
FTFY
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I've been fucking your mother, and we've been talking about throwing you out of the basement so we can make it into a sex dungeon. What do you think?