Many Americans suffer from having symptoms of depression and anxiety, but a new AI app can screen for mental health symptoms using only your voice on a smartphone.
The new health assistant app called “Together by Renee" rolled out Thursday and all you have to do is speak into your smartphone to get a reading on your voice and your mental health.
“It’s a guide," said Renee Dua, the app's creator. "There are no diagnostic tools outside of physicians at the moment who can truly give you a diagnosis such as anxiety or depression”,
The AI based health assistant touts a new groundbreaking feature called “mental vitals," an innovative mental health detection tool designed to screen for symptoms of depression and anxiety through voice analysis.
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“By listening to the sound of your voice and the various intonations, the software can determine whether or not you have symptoms of anxiety or depression based on perhaps the speed, the sound, the tone of your voice," said Dua.
As a user speaks for 30 seconds, the app uses advanced AI to analyze a user’s melody, vocal tract movement, and vocal fold dynamics.
With this data, the app can tell if a user has potential signs of anxiety or depression making early detection and intervention more accessible than ever.
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“There is no health without mental health. It’s really important to know if you're sad or scared or depressed or anxious and how that might be affecting the rest of your wellness," said Dua.
According to a Mental Health America 2023 survey, 54% of adults with a mental illness did not receive treatment.
The "mental vitals" feature joins the app's existing suite of tools that enable users to measure vitals, such as blood pressure, simply by pointing their smartphone camera at their face.
“We thought this was really important when creating a health assistant. Remember a person who is diabetic has to remember to take medications. It’s very stressful, they're freaked out by the needles,” said Dua. "We want them to be able to asses whether that's making them anxious or depressed and therefore making them forget to take their medicines or feel like they want to see their doctor before they do something."
"Together by Renee" has more than 11,000 users -- 64%of them over the age of 55.
The app is free and available on the Apple app store.
