Sept. 8, 2023 – Feeling burned out, overwhelmed, stressed, unmotivated, or fatigued? It’s time to take better care of yourself. 

Recent research from McKinsey points to increased consumer interest in wellness in areas such as nutrition, health, fitness, appearance, mindfulness, and sleep. A wellness retreat can help with all of this. While it would be an indulgent treat to book a weeklong stay at a wellness resort, not everyone has the time, budget, or resources to make this a reality. 

Fortunately, you can take a do-it-yourself approach by creating a meaningful wellness retreat at home. But where do you start? And what wellness components should you focus on? 

WebMD reached out to experts at Hilton Head Health, a renowned wellness resort in Hilton Head, SC, for tips on re-creating the wellness retreat experience at home. 

Understanding the Power of Self-Care 

In light of our on-the-go, always-connected lifestyles, emphasizing self-care takes on even greater significance these days. 

Anne Poirier, director of behavioral health at Hilton Head Health, defined self-care as any activity you do on purpose to preserve or improve your physical, emotional, or mental health. “Taking time to listen to what your body and mind need – and then taking action on that – is what self-care is all about,” said Poirier, noting how it eases stress, increases energy, and improves mood. 

“Creating and making time for an at-home retreat can be a wonderful way to kick-start a self-care routine or allow for true recovery and rejuvenation to bring your best self to your work, family, and life,” Poirier said.

Program Director David Chesworth said the goal is to come back to your day-to-day feeling refreshed and re-energized, reaping benefits such as fewer aches and pains, increased focus, better mood, and better-managed stress.

Setting the Stage 

The most important task is deciding the retreat’s goal, Poirier said. Is it rejuvenation? Self-discovery? Energy? Your goal will help tailor retreat activities to meet your needs. A good starting point is to consider the essential components with a holistic approach. 

“The retreat process involves unplugging from your day-to-day life and elevating some, or all, of the pillars of nutrition, fitness, recreation, curiosity, mindfulness, recovery and relaxation – all of which contribute to your mind and body feeling refreshed,” Chesworth noted. 

Poirier offered some practical planning tips to protect your time, set boundaries, and get rid of stress. 

“Reserve the weekend, letting others know you’ll be off grid!” she said. Nothing can derail your best-laid plans quicker than unexpected visitors and disruptive phone calls. 

Other pragmatic tips? 

• Clean the house before the retreat so you don’t get caught up in clutter. 
• Plan and prep your meals and snacks ahead of time. 
• Make a schedule – with some space. “At Hilton Head Health, we call this structured flexibility,” Poirier said. “I have some structure to my weekend, and I am also flexible to listen to my own needs.” 
• Pick up everything you’ll need, including food, herbal teas, colored pencils, a journal, incense, beauty treatments, etc. 

The goal is to make your retreat space functional, beautiful, calming, and conducive to some quality “me time.”

Planning Your Retreat

Depending on your lifestyle, goals, and budget, the retreat can last from 1 day to a long weekend to a whole week. Is there an ideal length? Within reason, the longer the better, according to Bob Wright, director of lifestyle education at Hilton Head Health.

“It might be unrealistic to do it for an entire week, and 1 day probably isn’t enough time to see any measurable benefit,” said Wright, noting a long weekend could work. Poirier said a weekend provides enough time for the body to decompress. But she said it can be helpful to take even 1 day “off” from normal daily activities and immerse yourself in self-care.

Because budgets for a DIY retreat will vary, Chesworth offers both cost-effective and splurge-worthy options. One budget-friendly idea is to spend time outdoors. “This is a great way to boost mood, promote sleep, and get some vitamin D!” he said. 

Go for a walk in a nearby park, connecting with local beauty. Chesworth suggests either bringing a friend to add a social element or going solo (and leaving your phone at home) to add a mindful element. When it comes to splurging, Chesworth suggests booking a massage therapist to come to your house or scheduling a pampering treatment at a local spa. If you enjoy cooking, learn some new healthy recipes. “But if you dread cooking, consider hiring a private chef or treating yourself to healthy meals at local restaurants,” he suggests. 

Unveiling the Retreat Experience

A good wellness retreat should include a combination of energizing and relaxing activities, Poirier said. Depending on your goals and lifestyle, this can include:

• Nourishing food
• Getting outside in nature
• Meditation
• Movement (yoga, walking, dancing, etc.)
• Hydration (enjoying infused water or herbal teas)
• Joyful activities (listening to music, journaling, coloring, reading)
• Pampering the body (getting a massage, taking a bath, conditioning your hair). 

Nutrition

Because a wellness retreat is more than just eating healthy meals, take time to identify your personal nutrition goals, said Elizabeth Huggins, a registered dietitian and nutritionist. “Once you’ve defined your goal(s), consider factors that add structure to your day: food choices, portion control, dining ambiance and environment, meal and snack times, and an approach to mindful eating,” she said.

She suggests planning meals that include fresh vegetables, lean protein, and a whole grain or beans, and leaving out ultra-processed foods. Also, consider meal combinations that will leave you feeling pleasantly satisfied and energized rather than feeling uncomfortable, lethargic, or suffering from indigestion. Depending on your goals, you might work in a special treat (think raspberry sorbet or a couple of squares of dark chocolate), keeping portion control in mind.

Finally, no matter where you dine, before eating, Huggins advises pausing for a moment of gratitude and making the most of mindfully eating. “Focus your attention on body-related sensations, including sight, smell, sound, taste, and texture of food,” she explained.

Physical Activity

Make time for a variety of fitness experiences to give your body and mind more energy. In addition to nature walks, Chesworth offered a few suggestions. 

“This is a great time to experiment with local studio gym classes that you never get around to trying,” he suggested. Try boxing, learn to play pickleball, or take Pilates. Or explore working with a personal trainer, booking a session either at home or in a gym.

If you’re looking for guidance in the comfort of your own home, following along with video workouts could be a great solution. Of course, you can always find free workouts on YouTube. But if you’re looking to bring the energy of a real retreat to your home, you can buy or subscribe to online exercise programs. 

Sleep

Creating a restful environment plays a key role in sleep quality. 

“One of the most important things we can do to support or improve our health and well-being is get high-quality sleep in the right amount,” Wright said. 

In the short term, Wright said that if you could prioritize sleep even for a week or a few days and notice the positive impact it can have, it may motivate you to regularly focus on sleep. In the long term, Chesworth suggested investing in a quality, sleep-supportive environment. That might mean upgrading your mattress, pillows, and linens, and investing in blackout curtains.

Mindfulness and Stress Management 

To cultivate mindfulness and better manage stress, Poirier said that meditation should be the first thing to plan into your retreat. “Start each morning with a grounding meditation to help set the retreat’s tone,” she said.  Use free or paid meditation apps (like Insight Timer or Calm) to find what works best for you.

Other stress-relieving activities include practicing yoga, stretching, coloring, listening to relaxing music, walking in nature, journaling, soaking in an Epsom salts bath, and laughing (rent a comedy or watch a sitcom). Schedule a few of these activities into your retreat. 

“Make sure to schedule down time,” Poirier advised. “One mistake we make is to try to fill every minute. Instead, create some space in your weekend to just be.”

Beyond the Retreat: Measuring Success and Integrating Habits

Be realistic with your retreat expectations, Wright said. 

“After a weekend, or even a weeklong, retreat, it would be unrealistic to expect to see significant physiological changes or improvements,” he said. “I’d focus more on factors such as energy, stress, restfulness, and mood.” 

One way to assess those factors? Wright suggested doing a pre-retreat and post-retreat assessment using a scale. For example, on a scale of 1-10, how fatigued do you feel (1 being not at all, 10 being very), how stressed, how energized, etc. “If these quality-of-life indicators improved during your at-home retreat, it might motivate you to implement some retreat practices on a regular basis,” he said.

If you noticed areas of improvement (more energy, less stress, more rest, less hunger, etc.), Wright advised creating a SMART goal (specific, measurable, action-oriented, realistic, time-bound) around the behaviors that led to the improvement.

By following these expert insights, you can create a personalized at-home wellness retreat that rejuvenates your mind, body, and spirit. More importantly, the retreat can help you add self-care habits to your daily life, fostering a sustained commitment to your mental and physical well-being.

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MIAMI – The Miami-Dade County Jail serves as the largest psychiatric institution in Florida. 

It has as many beds for people with mental illnesses as all state civil and forensic mental health treatment facilities combined. 

A first-of-its-kind facility in the world will soon open in Miami-Dade County to help people caught in the system. 

It’s called the Miami Center for Mental Health and Recovery. 

When its doors open, tentatively in about six months, it will offer treatment and work to rehabilitate people with serious mental illnesses who are caught in the criminal justice system. 

This is the culmination of about 16 years of study and planning.

“At the time when we started the project, there were about 118,000 arrests per year in Dade County. There were about 7,400 people in jail. We were over capacity in the jail. It was a nightmare. The federal government was coming into investigate because it was so bad,” said Judge Steve Leifman with the 11th Judicial Circuit of Florida. 

In fact, it was CBS News Miami’s reporting in 2007 that lead to that federal investigation, the 9th floor of the Miami-Dade jail. 

Insiders called it the “forgotten floor.” 

CBS News Miami’s Michelle Gillen exposed the treatment of people who were incarcerated and suffering from mental illness. 

Justin Volpe was there at the time. 

He was incarcerated on the forgotten floor as our cameras were rolling.

“I got arrested as a result of having a serious mental health issue which I was unaware of at the time. I knew my life was out of control, but I didn’t know what other factors were helping to make this scenario worse. In jail, I was put on the 9th floor. The forgotten floor which we referred to it and it was just insane, it was insane up there. I knew I wasn’t well, but the conditions were terrible. People being abused all the time, people screaming around the clock, the only place to lay was in a pile of feces, vomit and urine,” said Volpe.

As a result of the deplorable conditions the Federal Government sued. 

As part of a settlement, Miami Dade County closed the 9th floor and those who were incarcerated were moved to a new facility. 

Our cameras were rolling on that too as 400 people were transferred to the Miami-Dade Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center.

It was a temporary fix for those who were mentally ill but the beginning of a new chapter that brings us to where we are today.

The Miami Center for Mental Health and Recovery is the next phase in trying to fix a broken system and Judge Steve Leifman has been part of the project since the beginning.

“We can gently reintegrate people with these very serious illnesses back to the community, in recovery and hook them up with the support they need to maintain their recovery, plus they will have job skills and they’ll have reason to get up every morning,” said Judge Leifman.

The facility will offer, among other things, transitional housing, outpatient behavioral health and primary care. 

There will also be vocational rehabilitation and employment services and a courtroom and a space for legal and social service agencies.

“The illnesses are complex, but the solutions are not. We just have not offered them. It’s about relationships. It’s about helping people reconnect and once you are able to do that, it really helps them in their own recovery,” said Judge Leifman.

Judge Steve Leifman says the county spends $636,000 per day or $232 million per year to house an average daily population of 2,400 people with mental illnesses. 

By contrast, the state spends just $47.3 million annually to provide community-based mental health services to about 34,000 people in Miami-Dade and Monroe Counties. 

To put it another way, Judge Leifman says $100,000 annually in taxpayer dollars are spent for each person with a mental illness in jail compared to $1400 for each person who manages to access care in the community.

After Justin Volpe was released from the 9th floor he got treatment and was put in the jail diversion program. 

He was eventually offered a job as a peer support specialist with the county.

“It gave me a sense of purpose and my life started to get better. I met what would be my wife, we have been married 15 years. We have two beautiful kids, we have a house. I travel all around the country sharing my recovery story. Sixteen years later, the state attorney opened my old case and dismissed the charges. I have a clean record now. It’s a miracle,” said Volpe.

Police and jails are increasingly the first and only responders to people in crisis due to untreated mental illnesses. 

Judge Leifman says the facility will focus on serving people who are the highest utilizers of the criminal justice system and mental health services in Miami-Dade County.

More from CBS News

Najahe Sherman

Najahe Sherman is a news anchor and reporter for CBS News Miami. She anchors CBS Miami news at 5:30 p.m. on weekdays and reports for the 11:00 p.m. news.

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Joe McKay was a New York City firefighter so overcome by survivors’ guilt and unprocessed trauma after 9/11 that he got agonizing headaches no amount of prescription painkillers, booze, or other remedies could ease.

After getting diagnosed with cluster headaches, he heard about research out of Harvard that showed psychedelic drugs could help and got a small dose of psilocybin mushrooms from a friend of a friend.

“I had an interesting day,” he said. “But the next day, my headaches were gone. Boy, were they gone! I was in remission!”

McKay recounted his magic mushroom trips with a most unusual audience Monday — state legislators who sit on the Senate’s health committee.

He was one of several people who testified at an informational hearing at the Statehouse in Trenton, about a year after Sen. Nicholas Scutari (D-Union) introduced a bill that would authorize the clinical production and adult use of psilocybin to treat mental illness and addiction, “promote community, address trauma, and enhance physical and mental wellness.” The bill also would decriminalize psilocybin and expunge criminal records for past offenses involving psilocybin.

In brief remarks at the start of the hearing, Scutari thanked committee members for their “open-mindedness to this important topic that has gained national attention throughout our country with respect to the studies that have been going on with the medical efficacy and benefits of psilocybin.”

The committee heard from five invited experts: three researchers from Harvard, Johns Hopkins, and Rutgers universities, and McKay and another patient whose psilocybin use cured their ailments. The researchers touted its efficacy in treating everything from Alzheimer’s to post-traumatic stress disorder to nicotine addiction.

Jon Kostas is president of a patient advocacy group called Apollo Pact that advocates for psilocybin and psychedelic research for mental health. He told legislators he participated in a 2015 clinical trial on psilocybin at New York University “as a last resort” for alcoholism that he hadn’t been able to beat through other treatments.

“It worked almost like an antibiotic,” Kostas said. “I was sick with substance use disorder, I went to the hospital and was administered psilocybin-assisted therapy by a medical team, and I was cured.”

Joe McKay testified before the Senate health committee on June 26, 2023, in support of a bill that would legalize the clinical use of psilocybin, or “magic mushrooms,” which he said ended his headaches. (Dana DiFilippo | New Jersey Monitor)

McKay said he began taking the naturally occurring hallucinogenic fungi after his cluster headaches got so frequent and crippling that he lost his job and considered suicide. He now takes a dose twice a year to keep his headaches at bay for good.

“Psilocybin gave me my life back,” McKay said. “I had a giant sledgehammer to beat the beast that took my life away.”

Legislators had all sorts of questions for McKay, Kostas, and the others who testified, from how long psilocybin lasts in one’s system (typically less than 24 hours) to whether people experience flashbacks or “bad trips” (sometimes in “uncontrolled recreational settings”) to whether LSD or other psychedelics are being researched (yes, but none have gotten as far in studies and acceptance as psilocybin).

Anyone wandering unaware into the hearing might have been mystified by the testimony, given legislators’ recent moves to crack down on other drugs and finetune the state’s marijuana legalization law after concerns of underage users flouting their illegal cannabis use.

But even those typically known for their anti-drug stances — from Republicans to the federal government — have embraced the possibilities of psilocybin.

One co-sponsor on Scutari’s bill is Republican — Sen. Holly Schepisi of Bergen County — while other lawmakers in Republican-led states like Utah have commissioned studies. The federal Food and Drug Administration recently issued new guidance to researchers doing clinical trials on psilocybin and other psychedelic drugs, which an FDA official said “show initial promise as potential treatments for mood, anxiety and substance use disorders.”

Oregon became the first state in 2020 to decriminalize psilocybin and legalize its clinical use. California lawmakers recently advanced legislation to do the same.

Caroline Dorsen, an associate dean at Rutgers School of Nursing, told committee members Monday she hopes New Jersey will act too.

“Psilocybin is not for everyone. It is a powerful drug that must be taken in a way that minimizes risk and maximizes benefit,” Dorsen said. “But it is a much-needed tool in what is currently a very small toolbox of options for people who are struggling. As a nurse, my biggest fear is that we have a treatment to alleviate suffering sitting right in front of us, but that we are not going to use it because of unfounded fears, myths, stereotypes, and stigma. I hope that this is not the case in New Jersey.”

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Christopher C. Hemond, MD

In a recently concluded small-scale study of individuals with multiple sclerosis (MS), implementation of a mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) intervention resulted in several positive benefits on patient-reported outcomes (PROs).

Led by Christopher C. Hemond, MD, neurologist, UMass Memorial Health, the study featured 23 females with relapsing-remitting MS who were offered 8 weeks of MBSR free of charge. After a 12-week observation period, treatment with MBSR was associated with robust (d >.08) improvements across a range of unadjusted PROs, including stress, anxiety, depression, fatigue, loneliness, well-being, and interoceptive awareness (all P <.01).

Presented at the 2023 Consortium of Multiple Sclerosis Centers (CMSC) Annual Meeting, held May 31 to June 3, in Aurora Colorado, the cohort of individuals assessed had a median Expanded Disability Status Scale score of 2.0 (±1.2) and showed no new clinical/MRI disease activity during the 12-week observation period. More than half (57%) were on a B-cell depleting agent, and 91% completed the course.

READ MORE: Low-Fat Diet Intervention Demonstrates Significant Impacts on Multiple Sclerosis Fatigue

The conserved transcriptional response to adversity (CTRA) score was determined using well-established methods from 53 prespecified blood gene expression markers representing a composite of inflammation, interferon response, and immunoglobulin expression. Coming into the study, investigators hypothesized that MBSR would modulate systemic and central nervous system inflammation through top-down neurocognitive control over forebrain limbic areas responsible for the neurobiological stress response.

Prior to adjustment, no pre-post changes were noted in average hair cortisol, structural MRI, or CTRA as related to completion of MBSR. In mixed-effect analyses adjusting for age, race, body mass index, medical therapy, and time, changes in inflammatory gene expression (CTRA; n = 12) correlated inversely with changes in patient-reported stress (P <.0001), loneliness (P = .002), hair cortisol (P = .01), and aspects of interoceptive awareness. In similar exploratory mixed-effect regression with parcellated MRI data, a higher CTRA was associated with larger left (P = .02) and smaller right (P = .02) anterior insula cortical thickness.

Although there are few studies in MS, MBSR has shown potential to help alleviate silent symptoms of the disease. In 2017, a feasibility, randomized controlled trial of 50 individuals with MS assessed an MBSR intervention over a 3-month period, with primary outcomes of perceived stress and quality of life (QOL). Immediately post-MBSR, perceived stress improved with a large effect size (0.93; P <.01) compared with very small beneficial effects on QOL (0.17; P = .48). Depression (1.35; P <.05), positive affect (0.87; P = .13), anxiety (0.85; P = .05), and self-compassion (0.80; P <.01) also improved with large effect sizes.

Click here for more coverage of CMSC 2023.

REFERENCES
1. Hemond CC, Deshpande M, Morales IB, Slavich GM, Cole SW. An unblinded observational study of mildfulness-based stress reduction in MS: MRI and biological inflammatory correlates of patient-reported outcomes. Presented at: 2023 CMSC Annual Meeting; May 31-June 3; Aurora, CO. Abstract IMG06.
2. Simpson R, Mair FS, Mercer SW. Mindfulness-based stress reduction for people with multiple sclerosis – a feasibility randomized controlled trial. BMC Neurol. 2017;17(1):94. doi:10.1186/s12883-017-0880-8

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Even if the stigma surrounding getting mental health care is beginning to subside, one huge barrier remains for many people: actually finding a doctor with time to treat them.

While suicide rates spiked back up in 2021, the United States is expected to be short by 15,000 to 30,000 psychiatrists nationwide by 2024. Some estimates project the nation will be short more than 30,000 psychiatrists. But a medical data company based in Boston called OM1 built an AI-based platformed called PhenOM, which could potentially help streamline the process for patients to get the care they need, when they need it.

Dr. Carl Marci, chief psychiatrist and managing director of mental health and neuroscience at OM1, joined GBH’s All Things Considered host Arun Rath to break down the new technology and shine a light on the role artificial intelligence could be playing in the future of mental health care. What follows is a lightly edited transcript.

Arun Rath: First off, give us a broad sense of how this new technology works. What does PhenOM do, and how does it do it?

Dr. Carl Marci: I think the first step in any really good application of artificial intelligence in health care is great data. We get data from a variety of sources — often from medical and pharmacy claims, we get data from the government — but importantly, we also get data from electronic health records of patients. We’re very, very careful to de-identify the data and make sure it’s handled in a very secure way and organize it in the cloud. Once that’s done and in a common data architecture — which means we can actually apply some of these tools — then the fun begins and we can really begin to leverage that data for patient care.

Rath: Is this a diagnostic aid, ultimately?

Marci: Well, there’s many applications. One of them is to help identify patients who are at risk for either worsening disease, or what’s often referred to as treatment resistance.

In the space of depression, you may be aware that often our medications, as good as they are, don’t work for everyone. So we’re using our data to begin to subtype different types of depression and identify patients who may go on to have treatment resistance, and then they could benefit from some of the new treatments that are in our pipeline that we hope will help patients who have failed other types of interventions.

Rath: What are some of the other applications?

Marci: One of my favorite applications, and one I’m very proud of, is our ability to amplify endpoints. What does that mean? Well, in the real world, it’s very hard to get patients to fill our surveys, and it’s often hard to get clinicians to ask patients to fill in surveys. One of the challenges in mental health is measurement. We don’t have a culture in this country — in psychiatry, in mental health — of assessing patients with the types of tools that are available.

So we’ve developed a technology that can model based on a clinician’s notes in the chart and estimate what’s essentially a disease progression score. People might be familiar with the PHQ-9, [the Patient Health Questionnaire-9]. You’ve probably filled one out of your primary care doctor where they ask you a series of questions screening you for depression. We’re able to do that with our artificial intelligence tool and generate a score to fill in gaps in the patient’s journey, and that allows us to do a better job researching our data sets and identifying who’s going to respond to what type of treatment.

“[We’re using our data to identify who] could benefit from some of the new treatments that are in our pipeline that we hope will help patients who have failed other types of interventions.”

Dr. Carl Marci, chief psychiatrist at OM1

Rath: You reminded me of something a psychiatrist said to me a long time ago about the difficulty of the field: they don’t have the diagnostic tools that other doctors do. There aren’t X-rays or the kinds of ways you can see inside the body to treat the kind of disease they do. It sounds like the data could provide that kind of window?

Marci: I think that’s exactly the right way to think about it. We call it PHenOM because what it really is doing is phenotyping. A phenotype is the sort of behavioral expression of a disease or an illness. So we use our machine learning and our artificial intelligence tools to take literally billions of data points in identified patients to begin to parse them into different groups.

Then, the next step is to begin to look and see who responds to what types of treatment so that, in the near future, we can have clinicians sitting at the bedside, put into the computer a few parameters based on the history the patient gives us, or even read the clinical note and give some intelligent feedback about what that patient is most likely to respond to. We haven’t been able to do that in mental health, and that’s one of the things I’m most excited about.

Rath: You know, a lot of people will come into this thinking about AI and thinking of autonomous things — like a psychiatry bot that steps in. But this is more of augmenting what humans are doing.

Marci: In this case, we’re really trying to create tools for the bedside in clinics and within existing care models.

Now, what you’re referring to, and what I think everyone is excited about, are these large language models, like ChatGPT, and what kind of role they could have in mental health. There are some exciting applications, and for me, the idea of using an artifical bot that has natural language is exciting in a couple of applications.

One of them is to fill in the gaps in care. You know, if I’m lucky, when I’m in a clinic, I will see a patient every two weeks — more typically, every six, eight or 12 weeks. So there’s a lot of time in between those encounters with me. If we had a tool that we trusted to interact with patients, assess them, give some basic advice, encourage them to change their behaviors and apply some of the skills we’ve been working on, to take their medication, I think we would see outcomes get a lot better.

Rath: So, say that first stage where you’re filling out those forms — and we know that people sometimes don’t fill them out that well — you could have some kind of interface that asked you questions in a better way.

Marci: You also could have an interface to remind you to fill it out. One of the biggest challenges we have is just reminding people that they haven’t filled it out, and encouraging them and doing that in an engaging and empathic and natural way.

We know that face-to-face interactions create and generate a therapeutic response. So what I’m optimistic about is that computers can get to the place where they can augment and complement human interventions — not replace — and fill in some of the gaps in care and collect data that then a clinician can then use to get better outcomes.

Rath: How soon do you expect that people will be seeing this technology at their own doctor’s offices?

Marci: Well, if history is any guide, I think there’s going to be a lot of hype over the next one to two years, and then reality will set in. What I encourage everyone to think about and realize is that any of these models are really only as good as the data they’re based on.

What I worry today about rushing to use large language models like ChatGPT clinically is that they are based on good information and misinformation. God forbid someone who, for example, is thinking about suicide interacts with a tool like this, and it mistakenly gives them instructions for how to commit suicide. That would be a tragedy.

So we also simultaneously, as we’re developing these models, need to work with the government and need to think about the equivalent of the Food and Drug Administration evaluation of new medications to evaluate devices and tools like this, or else we probably will see some bad outcomes, and that could spoil it for everyone.

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As the world of artificial intelligence blooms, some players in the health care industry are looking to make a major difference in public health.

HMNC Brain Health — a Munich, Germany-based health tech company — is one of those. It’s attempting to use novel AI-powered technologies to address mental health issues.

The company has developed what’s described as a “precision psychiatry” diagnostic tool that uses artificial intelligence to predict, diagnose and even treat depression.

CHATGPT FOR HEALTH CARE PROVIDERS: CAN THE AI CHATBOT MAKE THE PROFESSIONALS’ JOBS EASIER?

While the technology is still in development, HMNC Chief Medical Officer Dr. Hans Eriksson told Fox News Digital that the tool could be the first of its kind in generative AI.

“We expect to be probably the first to bring a functioning companion diagnostic together with a new treatment for depression,” he said.

READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP

A visualization of HMNC Brain Health’s development of its AI-powered diagnostic platform.

Eriksson, who is also a psychiatrist, said HMNC began by attempting to find the link between stress and depression.

One of HMNC’s objectives, he added, is to eradicate the “trial and error” of mental health treatments.

CHATGPT AND HEALTH CARE: COULD THE AI CHATBOT CHANGE THE PATIENT EXPERIENCE? 

“We know that the available antidepressants, for instance, are generally safe and well-tolerated,” he said.

“But they don’t lead to a substantial improvement in all patients.”

Dr. Hans Eriksson, HMNC Brain Health’s chief medical officer, said the company’s diagnostic tool could be the first of its kind in generative AI.

“Until now, there has been no really good way to decide what treatment should be chosen for a particular patient,” he said.

HMNC, he emphasized, is attempting to bring the “precision medicine angle to psychiatry” through novel medicines and AI-powered tools.

Dr. Daniel Gehrlach, HMNC’s associate director of biomarkers, added that depression diagnoses are “subjective.”

AI HEALTH CARE PLATFORM PREDICTS DIABETES WITH HIGH ACCURACY BUT ‘WON’T REPLACE PATIENT CARE’

“We have many people who are diagnosed as having a major depressive disorder, but there might be completely different underlying biologies leading to this depression,” he said.

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The new technology can identify niche subsets that may lead to depression, such as stress, he said.

“We expect to be probably the first to bring a functioning companion diagnostic together with a new treatment for depression,” said Dr. Hans Eriksson, HMNC’s chief medical officer.

“We were lucky to obtain large datasets, clinical data from patients — and this allowed us to train an algorithm using machine learning tools to classify a patient into either highly likely to respond or not,” Gehrlach said.

“We as humans would not be able to make any sense out of that, but by using AI and machine learning tools, we are able to train this algorithm to predict which patient will respond best.”

Eriksson said HMNC is running three different programs, two of which are currently in phase two of development.

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“In one of the programs, we are aiming for treatment-resistant depression; in the other program, we are looking at the broader patient population with depression,” he said.

Since many depression treatments have helped with other disorders such as anxiety, the psychiatrist said it is “very likely” that HMNC will branch out to other mental illnesses in the future.

HMNC Brain Health has developed what is described as a “precision psychiatry” diagnostic tool that uses artificial intelligence to predict, diagnose and even treat depression.

“Our vision is that there will be a number of medications with companion diagnostics,” he said. “Some of them will be coming from HMNC Brain Health; some may come from other places.”

He added, “But this will give the psychiatrists of the future a much more versatile toolbox to really be able to select the most appropriate treatment for the patient early on, instead of having this trial-and-error process that is the common practice today.”

While they’re not alone in bringing precision medicine into psychiatry, Eriksson said HMNC stands apart from competitors with its two-pronged approach, including identification capabilities and medication already in development.

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It will take several years for HMNC’s solution to come to market. Even so, Eriksson said the company’s model has the potential to improve early response and detection in the mental health industry.

“Psychiatric treatment will probably become much more streamlined,” he said. He also said he hopes there will be “a shorter duration from diagnosis to cure for patients.”

“We are doing this to help patients to get better treatments and to get well faster,” Eriksson of HMNC Brain Health said.

Gehrlach compared the method to what is practiced in oncology today with treating cancers.

“When you take a biopsy, you measure, you see what kind of tumor it is and what it could respond to, and only then initiate treatment,” he said.

“Of course, we shouldn’t forget the fact that psychiatry also encompasses clinicians and health care providers meeting the patients on a psychological level,” Eriksson said.

“So, there will also be a need for that.”

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“But the biological tools that we are able to provide, we hope will be more specific and help the patients to overcome the symptoms earlier on,” he added.

Dr. Daniel Gehrlach is HMNC Brain Health’s associate director of biomarkers.

Gehrlach commented on the “fantastic” and recent development of generative AI, stating that he can envision a future with innovations such as “psychiatrist chatbots.”

“Overall, [it is] very exciting and we hope to be spearheading this in the psychiatric space,” he said.

Eriksson said he considers this the start of a “new golden era of neuropsychopharmacology.”

HMNC Brain Health’s team commented on the “fantastic” and recent development of generative AI — saying they can envision a future with innovations such as “psychiatrist chatbots.”

“I’m quite fortunate to be able to live in this era where a large number of breakthroughs are coming in … and that happens at the same time as this AI opportunity opens itself up,” said Eriksson.

“[HMNC] are the pioneers in precision psychiatry,” he added.

“We are trying to really transform the way psychiatric drugs are being developed … to help patients to get better treatments and to get well faster.”

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