TY  - JOUR
AU  - Cormack, Francesca
AU  - McCue, Maggie
AU  - Taptiklis, Nick
AU  - Skirrow, Caroline
AU  - Glazer, Emilie
AU  - Panagopoulos, Elli
AU  - van Schaik, Tempest A
AU  - Fehnert, Ben
AU  - King, James
AU  - Barnett, Jennifer H
PY  - 2019
DA  - 2019/11/18
TI  - Wearable Technology for High-Frequency Cognitive and Mood Assessment in Major Depressive Disorder: Longitudinal Observational Study
JO  - JMIR Ment Health
SP  - e12814
VL  - 6
IS  - 11
KW  - depression
KW  - cognition
KW  - mood
KW  - mobile health
KW  - mHealth
KW  - mobile apps
KW  - ecological momentary assessment
KW  - digital phenotyping
KW  - digital biomarkers
AB  - Background: Cognitive symptoms are common in major depressive disorder and may help to identify patients who need treatment or who are not experiencing adequate treatment response. Digital tools providing real-time data assessing cognitive function could help support patient treatment and remediation of cognitive and mood symptoms. Objective: The aim of this study was to examine feasibility and validity of a wearable high-frequency cognitive and mood assessment app over 6 weeks, corresponding to when antidepressant pharmacotherapy begins to show efficacy. Methods: A total of 30 patients (aged 19-63 years; 19 women) with mild-to-moderate depression participated in the study. The new Cognition Kit app was delivered via the Apple Watch, providing a high-resolution touch screen display for task presentation and logging responses. Cognition was assessed by the n-back task up to 3 times daily and depressed mood by 3 short questions once daily. Adherence was defined as participants completing at least 1 assessment daily. Selected tests sensitive to depression from the Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery and validated questionnaires of depression symptom severity were administered on 3 occasions (weeks 1, 3, and 6). Exploratory analyses examined the relationship between mood and cognitive measures acquired in low- and high-frequency assessment. Results: Adherence was excellent for mood and cognitive assessments (95% and 96%, respectively), did not deteriorate over time, and was not influenced by depression symptom severity or cognitive function at study onset. Analyses examining the relationship between high-frequency cognitive and mood assessment and validated measures showed good correspondence. Daily mood assessments correlated moderately with validated depression questionnaires (r=0.45-0.69 for total daily mood score), and daily cognitive assessments correlated moderately with validated cognitive tests sensitive to depression (r=0.37-0.50 for mean n-back). Conclusions: This study supports the feasibility and validity of high-frequency assessment of cognition and mood using wearable devices over an extended period in patients with major depressive disorder. 
SN  - 2368-7959
UR  - https://mental.jmir.org/2019/11/e12814
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2196/12814
UR  - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31738172
DO  - 10.2196/12814
ID  - info:doi/10.2196/12814
ER  -