Smartphone app tracks mental health

By Staff Writer

Apple recently released an application (app) for its iPhone, which seeks to monitor the mental health of its user. The app was created to help the military keep track of the emotions of soldiers to prevent conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder, but the technology may also be useful to teens.

Discovery News reports that the smartphone app, called T2 MoodTracker, works like a high-tech diary, allowing users to express emotions and behaviors that can result from therapy, medication, daily experiences or changes happening at work or in the home. The app is supposed to serve as an accurate and timely record of mental health.

The program is designed to specifically track anxiety, depression, general well-being, life stress, post-traumatic stress and brain injury. Each of these issues has a set of 10 descriptions called effective anchors that let users hone in on how the issues affect them. They can focus on those feelings through a visual scale and touch screen, which allow them to choose a point on a color continuum that reflects their emotions.

The daily expressions add up over time to produce a trend that can be observed by physicians and therapists.

According to PBS, approximately 4 percent of adolescents develop serious depression each year.