Institutional development · Research collaboration · United States
Georgia Tech and Emory build wearable toolkit for PTSD therapy under US$1.2m NSF grant
Researchers at Georgia Tech and Emory University have produced an app and clinician dashboard that use Fitbit sensor data to track how PTSD patients respond during between-session exposure homework.
Why it matters: Clinicians treating PTSD with prolonged exposure therapy can use the toolkit's dashboard to review patients' sensor data from homework practised outside the clinic.
Georgia Tech said it and Emory University have developed a technology toolkit that lets clinicians see sensor data on how PTSD patients' bodies react outside therapy sessions.
According to Georgia Tech, an app linked to a Fitbit wearable records heart rate, step count, noise level and other data while patients carry out prolonged exposure homework, and a web dashboard lets clinicians review the data, add notes and track progress.
The toolkit is the culmination of a US$1.2 million National Science Foundation (NSF) grant awarded in 2019 to Rosa Arriaga of Georgia Tech's School of Interactive Computing and Andrew Sherrill of Emory's Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences.
Editor’s view
Joseph Lopez, Collaboration Editor
Clinicians who treat PTSD and the patients they assign exposure homework are directly affected: if they adopt the toolkit, therapists can draw on recorded sensor data rather than relying only on patients' recollections when structuring sessions.
