https://fellowsblog.ted.com/how-we-can-use-smartphones-to-diagnose-and-treat-depression-adc4cf9ede8a

When you’re depressed, it isn’t all in your head. Depression can disrupt sleep, instigate irregular eating and make you less active and social. It can completely disrupt your internal body clock.

The good news: we can monitor these behavioral changes to more effectively diagnose depression. Digital health company HealthRhythms is working to do just that. Using data passively collected from smartphones with privacy sensitive and HIPAA compliant sensing and processing, the New York-based company can assess daily behaviors to paint a comprehensive picture of an individual’s mental health. Soon it plans to go even further: last fall, the company received a $2.1 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to develop an automated recommendation engine capable of delivering personalized, real-time health interventions and behavioral change suggestions for people with mental health conditions.