Dror Ben-Zeev, an assistant professor of psychiatry at the Geisel School of Medicine, is part of a team of researchers from the Dartmouth Psychiatric Research Center working on a mobile application called FOCUS, which is designed to help treat symptoms of mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, reports NHPR.
The app, explains NHPR, asks patients about their symptoms. For example, it asks, “Hello, have you been bothered by voices today? Do you think that the voices are uncontrollable, all-knowing, powerful, or a symptom of your condition?” Then, the app offers suggestions: “Try this experiment. Take a moment and think of one thing that the voices were wrong about in the last week. Go ahead. You can do it.”
“It gives you very quick and dirty real-time interventions that could help someone in the moment,” Ben-Zeev tells NHPR.
Listen to the full story, broadcast 10/30/13 on NHPR.