Kintsugi’s new voice recognition app wants to make diagnosing mental health issues easier for physicians and practitioners to identify. The voice recognition app is able to objectively identify a number of voice markers that can indicate a number of mental health concerns, such as depression or anxiety, and even can help to rate the severity of each condition and suggest a possible course of treatment.
What are voice biomarkers?
These biomarkers are specific ways that people speak and certain cues, subtle or not, that may indicate conditions such as depression and anxiety. Kintsugi shares,
“Using voice biomarkers as a diagnostic tool is not a novel discovery. Scientific papers dating back to the 1970s describe the subtle vocal indicators of these health conditions, including reduced range of pitch and volume and more pauses in speech.”
With modern technology, especially advances in AI, Kintsugi’s app has the ability to identify these objective markers to help primary care physicians and other medical practitioners read between the lines to diagnose mental health conditions. It sure is a tall order for an app, but what an interesting and promising concept it is.
We hear a lot about mental health struggles in the news these days, but not too much about solutions. If the new Kintsugi app can help identify problems and help people seek appropriate treatments, then what’s not to love? Bringing focus to the importance of mental health and diagnosing and treating it in a timely way is an idea whose time has long since come.
Mental health is as important as physical health, but it often goes undiscussed or unexamined. According to research claims by Kintsugi, 1 in 6 people suffer from some sort of adverse mental health conditions, with 1 in 3 young people reporting having anxiety, and more than half of senior citizens and people with chronic illnesses dealing with challenges.
Mental health struggles are commonplace and are related to one’s physical well-being as well, yet we don’t generally see people going in for a mental health checkup the same way they go for, say, an annual physical.
While the reasons for this are manifold, the fact is that it’s not always easy to objectively identify when someone is struggling with mental health issues. In fact, there are existing tests that can help to objectively identify various types of conditions. The EEG and MRI tests are good examples of this. However, they are not often used for this reason, particularly by PCPs, because they are pricey and more time-consuming than your average doctor’s visit.
The Kintsugi app promises to do as much in less time and with less disruption to a routine doctor or telehealth visit. If this is true, this could help a lot of people. Read more about this hopeful innovation in mental healthcare here, and if you are an interested practitioner, you can request a demo.
Joleen Jernigan is an ever-curious writer, grammar nerd, and social media strategist with a background in training, education, and educational publishing. A native Texan, Joleen has traveled extensively, worked in six countries, and holds an MA in Teaching English as a Second Language. She lives in Austin and constantly seeks out the best the city has to offer.
