Clinical Psychiatry News

Psychiatry, like all medical disciplines, changes over time. For many decades, psychiatrists were primarily psychotherapists. As medications slowly became available, these became a second tool for treatment — so much so that by the 21st century many, if not most, psychiatrists saw themselves primarily as psychopharmacologists and diagnosticians who were skilled at identifying various forms of mental illness and using medications in the hopes of inducing a clinically meaningful “response” in symptoms. While still belonging to the umbrella category of a mental health professional, more and more psychiatrists trained and practiced as mental illness professionals.

Slowly, however, there have been stirrings within the field by many who have found the identity of the psychiatrist as a “prescriber” to be too narrow, and the current “med check” model of treatment too confining. This change was partly inspired by our colleagues in clinical psychology who were challenged in the 1990s by then American Psychological Association President Martin Seligman, PhD, to develop knowledge and expertise not only in alleviating mental suffering but also in promoting true mental well-being, a construct that still was often vaguely defined. One framework of well-being that was advanced at the time was the PERMA model, representing the five well-being dimensions of Positive emotions, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, and Accomplishment.¹

Dr. Rettew

While there have always been those in psychiatry who have advocated for a broad emphasis that incorporates the full spectrum of mental health, there has been a surge of interest in the past 10-15 years, urging a focus on well-being and the tools that can help a person achieve it. This trend has variably been referred to as positive psychiatry, lifestyle psychiatry, and other terms.² As one might expect, child and adolescent psychiatry has been particularly fertile ground for such principles, and models such as the Vermont Family Based Approach have expanded the concept beyond the individual to the family and even community.³

It is important to note here that embracing the concept of well-being in treatment does not in any way require one to abandon the idea that genetic or environmental factors can lead to negative outcomes in brain development, nor does it mandate that one leaves behind important treatment modalities such as traditional psychotherapy and medication treatment. Further, this approach should not be confused with some “wellness” activities that offer quick fixes and lack scientific rigor. Positive psychiatry does, however, offer a third pathway to advance positive emotional behavioral growth, namely through health promotion activities ranging from exercise to good nutrition to positive parenting in ways that have been shown to benefit both those who are already doing fairly well as well as those who are actively struggling with significant psychiatric disorders.⁴

Primary care clinicians already have extensive familiarity talking about these kinds of health promoting activities with families. That said, it’s been my observation from many years of doing consultations and reviewing notes that these conversations happen almost exclusively during well-check visits and can get forgotten when a child presents with emotional behavioral challenges.

So how can the primary care clinician who is interested in more fully incorporating the burgeoning science on well-being work these principles into routine practice? Here are three suggestions.
 

Ask Some New Questions

It’s difficult to treat things that aren’t assessed. To best incorporate true mental health within one’s work with families, it can be very helpful to expand the regular questions one asks to include those that address some of the PERMA and health promotion areas described above. Some examples could include the following:

• Hopes. What would a perfect life look like for you when you’re older?
• Connection. Is there anything that you just love doing, so much so that time sometimes just seems to go away?
• Strengths. What are you good at? What good things would your friends say about you?
• Parenting. What are you most proud of as a parent, and where are your biggest challenges?
• Nutrition. What does a typical school day breakfast look like for you?
• Screens. Do you have any restrictions related to what you do on screens?
• Sleep. Tell me about your typical bedtime routine.

Add Some New Interventions

Counseling and medications can be powerful ways to bring improvement in a child’s life, but thinking about health promotion opens up a whole new avenue for intervention. This domain includes areas like physical activity, nutrition, sleep practices, parenting, participation in music and the arts, practicing kindness towards others, and mindfulness, among others.

For someone newly diagnosed with ADHD, for example, consider expanding your treatment plan to include not only medications but also specific guidance to exercise more, limit screen usage, practice good bedtime routines, eat a real breakfast, and reduce the helicopter parenting. Monitor these areas over time.

Another example relates to common sleep problems. Before making that melatonin recommendation, ask yourself if you understand what is happening in that child’s environment at night. Are they allowed to play video games until 2 a.m.? Are they taking naps during the day because they have nothing to do? Are they downing caffeinated drinks with dinner? Does the child get zero physical activity outside of the PE class? Maybe you still will need the melatonin, but perhaps other areas need to be addressed first.
 

Find Some New Colleagues

While it can be challenging sometimes to find anyone in mental health who sees new patients, there is value is finding out the approach and methodology that psychiatric clinicians and therapists apply in their practice. Working collaboratively with those who value a well-being orientation and who can work productively with the whole family to increase health promotion can yield benefits for a patient’s long-term physical and mental health.

The renewed interest and attention on well-being and health promotion activities that can optimize brain growth are a welcome and overdue development in mental health treatment. Pediatricians and other primary care clinicians can be a critical part of this growing initiative by gaining knowledge about youth well-being, applying this knowledge in day-to-day practice, and working collaboratively with those who share a similar perspective.
 

Dr. Rettew is a child & adolescent psychiatrist and medical director of Lane County Behavioral Health in Eugene, Oregon. He is on the psychiatry faculty at Oregon Health & Science University. You can follow him on Facebook and X @PediPsych. His latest book is Parenting Made Complicated: What Science Really Knows about the Greatest Debates of Early Childhood.

References

1. Seligman, MEP. Flourish: a visionary new understanding of happiness and well-being. New York: Simon & Schuster; 2011.

2. Jeste DV, Palmer BW. (Eds.). Positive psychiatry: a clinical handbook. Washington DC: American Psychiatric Publishing; 2015. doi: 10.1176/appi.books.9781615370818.

3. Hudziak J, Ivanova MY. The Vermont family based approach: Family based health promotion, illness prevention, and intervention. Child Adolesc Psychiatr Clin N Am. 2016 Apr;25(2):167-78. doi: 10.1016/j.chc.2015.11.002.

4. Rettew DC. Incorporating positive psychiatry with children and adolescents. Current Psychiatry. 2022 November;21(11):12-16,45. doi: 10.12788/cp.0303.

Psychiatry, like all medical disciplines, changes over time. For many decades, psychiatrists were primarily psychotherapists. As medications slowly became available, these became a second tool for treatment — so much so that by the 21st century many, if not most, psychiatrists saw themselves primarily as psychopharmacologists and diagnosticians who were skilled at identifying various forms of mental illness and using medications in the hopes of inducing a clinically meaningful “response” in symptoms. While still belonging to the umbrella category of a mental health professional, more and more psychiatrists trained and practiced as mental illness professionals.

Slowly, however, there have been stirrings within the field by many who have found the identity of the psychiatrist as a “prescriber” to be too narrow, and the current “med check” model of treatment too confining. This change was partly inspired by our colleagues in clinical psychology who were challenged in the 1990s by then American Psychological Association President Martin Seligman, PhD, to develop knowledge and expertise not only in alleviating mental suffering but also in promoting true mental well-being, a construct that still was often vaguely defined. One framework of well-being that was advanced at the time was the PERMA model, representing the five well-being dimensions of Positive emotions, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, and Accomplishment.¹

Dr. Rettew

While there have always been those in psychiatry who have advocated for a broad emphasis that incorporates the full spectrum of mental health, there has been a surge of interest in the past 10-15 years, urging a focus on well-being and the tools that can help a person achieve it. This trend has variably been referred to as positive psychiatry, lifestyle psychiatry, and other terms.² As one might expect, child and adolescent psychiatry has been particularly fertile ground for such principles, and models such as the Vermont Family Based Approach have expanded the concept beyond the individual to the family and even community.³

It is important to note here that embracing the concept of well-being in treatment does not in any way require one to abandon the idea that genetic or environmental factors can lead to negative outcomes in brain development, nor does it mandate that one leaves behind important treatment modalities such as traditional psychotherapy and medication treatment. Further, this approach should not be confused with some “wellness” activities that offer quick fixes and lack scientific rigor. Positive psychiatry does, however, offer a third pathway to advance positive emotional behavioral growth, namely through health promotion activities ranging from exercise to good nutrition to positive parenting in ways that have been shown to benefit both those who are already doing fairly well as well as those who are actively struggling with significant psychiatric disorders.⁴

Primary care clinicians already have extensive familiarity talking about these kinds of health promoting activities with families. That said, it’s been my observation from many years of doing consultations and reviewing notes that these conversations happen almost exclusively during well-check visits and can get forgotten when a child presents with emotional behavioral challenges.

So how can the primary care clinician who is interested in more fully incorporating the burgeoning science on well-being work these principles into routine practice? Here are three suggestions.
 

Ask Some New Questions

It’s difficult to treat things that aren’t assessed. To best incorporate true mental health within one’s work with families, it can be very helpful to expand the regular questions one asks to include those that address some of the PERMA and health promotion areas described above. Some examples could include the following:

• Hopes. What would a perfect life look like for you when you’re older?
• Connection. Is there anything that you just love doing, so much so that time sometimes just seems to go away?
• Strengths. What are you good at? What good things would your friends say about you?
• Parenting. What are you most proud of as a parent, and where are your biggest challenges?
• Nutrition. What does a typical school day breakfast look like for you?
• Screens. Do you have any restrictions related to what you do on screens?
• Sleep. Tell me about your typical bedtime routine.

Add Some New Interventions

Counseling and medications can be powerful ways to bring improvement in a child’s life, but thinking about health promotion opens up a whole new avenue for intervention. This domain includes areas like physical activity, nutrition, sleep practices, parenting, participation in music and the arts, practicing kindness towards others, and mindfulness, among others.

For someone newly diagnosed with ADHD, for example, consider expanding your treatment plan to include not only medications but also specific guidance to exercise more, limit screen usage, practice good bedtime routines, eat a real breakfast, and reduce the helicopter parenting. Monitor these areas over time.

Another example relates to common sleep problems. Before making that melatonin recommendation, ask yourself if you understand what is happening in that child’s environment at night. Are they allowed to play video games until 2 a.m.? Are they taking naps during the day because they have nothing to do? Are they downing caffeinated drinks with dinner? Does the child get zero physical activity outside of the PE class? Maybe you still will need the melatonin, but perhaps other areas need to be addressed first.
 

Find Some New Colleagues

While it can be challenging sometimes to find anyone in mental health who sees new patients, there is value is finding out the approach and methodology that psychiatric clinicians and therapists apply in their practice. Working collaboratively with those who value a well-being orientation and who can work productively with the whole family to increase health promotion can yield benefits for a patient’s long-term physical and mental health.

The renewed interest and attention on well-being and health promotion activities that can optimize brain growth are a welcome and overdue development in mental health treatment. Pediatricians and other primary care clinicians can be a critical part of this growing initiative by gaining knowledge about youth well-being, applying this knowledge in day-to-day practice, and working collaboratively with those who share a similar perspective.
 

Dr. Rettew is a child & adolescent psychiatrist and medical director of Lane County Behavioral Health in Eugene, Oregon. He is on the psychiatry faculty at Oregon Health & Science University. You can follow him on Facebook and X @PediPsych. His latest book is Parenting Made Complicated: What Science Really Knows about the Greatest Debates of Early Childhood.

References

1. Seligman, MEP. Flourish: a visionary new understanding of happiness and well-being. New York: Simon & Schuster; 2011.

2. Jeste DV, Palmer BW. (Eds.). Positive psychiatry: a clinical handbook. Washington DC: American Psychiatric Publishing; 2015. doi: 10.1176/appi.books.9781615370818.

3. Hudziak J, Ivanova MY. The Vermont family based approach: Family based health promotion, illness prevention, and intervention. Child Adolesc Psychiatr Clin N Am. 2016 Apr;25(2):167-78. doi: 10.1016/j.chc.2015.11.002.

4. Rettew DC. Incorporating positive psychiatry with children and adolescents. Current Psychiatry. 2022 November;21(11):12-16,45. doi: 10.12788/cp.0303.

Psychiatry, like all medical disciplines, changes over time. For many decades, psychiatrists were primarily psychotherapists. As medications slowly became available, these became a second tool for treatment — so much so that by the 21st century many, if not most, psychiatrists saw themselves primarily as psychopharmacologists and diagnosticians who were skilled at identifying various forms of mental illness and using medications in the hopes of inducing a clinically meaningful “response” in symptoms. While still belonging to the umbrella category of a mental health professional, more and more psychiatrists trained and practiced as mental illness professionals.

Slowly, however, there have been stirrings within the field by many who have found the identity of the psychiatrist as a “prescriber” to be too narrow, and the current “med check” model of treatment too confining. This change was partly inspired by our colleagues in clinical psychology who were challenged in the 1990s by then American Psychological Association President Martin Seligman, PhD, to develop knowledge and expertise not only in alleviating mental suffering but also in promoting true mental well-being, a construct that still was often vaguely defined. One framework of well-being that was advanced at the time was the PERMA model, representing the five well-being dimensions of Positive emotions, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, and Accomplishment.¹

Dr. Rettew

While there have always been those in psychiatry who have advocated for a broad emphasis that incorporates the full spectrum of mental health, there has been a surge of interest in the past 10-15 years, urging a focus on well-being and the tools that can help a person achieve it. This trend has variably been referred to as positive psychiatry, lifestyle psychiatry, and other terms.² As one might expect, child and adolescent psychiatry has been particularly fertile ground for such principles, and models such as the Vermont Family Based Approach have expanded the concept beyond the individual to the family and even community.³

It is important to note here that embracing the concept of well-being in treatment does not in any way require one to abandon the idea that genetic or environmental factors can lead to negative outcomes in brain development, nor does it mandate that one leaves behind important treatment modalities such as traditional psychotherapy and medication treatment. Further, this approach should not be confused with some “wellness” activities that offer quick fixes and lack scientific rigor. Positive psychiatry does, however, offer a third pathway to advance positive emotional behavioral growth, namely through health promotion activities ranging from exercise to good nutrition to positive parenting in ways that have been shown to benefit both those who are already doing fairly well as well as those who are actively struggling with significant psychiatric disorders.⁴

Primary care clinicians already have extensive familiarity talking about these kinds of health promoting activities with families. That said, it’s been my observation from many years of doing consultations and reviewing notes that these conversations happen almost exclusively during well-check visits and can get forgotten when a child presents with emotional behavioral challenges.

So how can the primary care clinician who is interested in more fully incorporating the burgeoning science on well-being work these principles into routine practice? Here are three suggestions.
 

Ask Some New Questions

It’s difficult to treat things that aren’t assessed. To best incorporate true mental health within one’s work with families, it can be very helpful to expand the regular questions one asks to include those that address some of the PERMA and health promotion areas described above. Some examples could include the following:

• Hopes. What would a perfect life look like for you when you’re older?
• Connection. Is there anything that you just love doing, so much so that time sometimes just seems to go away?
• Strengths. What are you good at? What good things would your friends say about you?
• Parenting. What are you most proud of as a parent, and where are your biggest challenges?
• Nutrition. What does a typical school day breakfast look like for you?
• Screens. Do you have any restrictions related to what you do on screens?
• Sleep. Tell me about your typical bedtime routine.

Add Some New Interventions

Counseling and medications can be powerful ways to bring improvement in a child’s life, but thinking about health promotion opens up a whole new avenue for intervention. This domain includes areas like physical activity, nutrition, sleep practices, parenting, participation in music and the arts, practicing kindness towards others, and mindfulness, among others.

For someone newly diagnosed with ADHD, for example, consider expanding your treatment plan to include not only medications but also specific guidance to exercise more, limit screen usage, practice good bedtime routines, eat a real breakfast, and reduce the helicopter parenting. Monitor these areas over time.

Another example relates to common sleep problems. Before making that melatonin recommendation, ask yourself if you understand what is happening in that child’s environment at night. Are they allowed to play video games until 2 a.m.? Are they taking naps during the day because they have nothing to do? Are they downing caffeinated drinks with dinner? Does the child get zero physical activity outside of the PE class? Maybe you still will need the melatonin, but perhaps other areas need to be addressed first.
 

Find Some New Colleagues

While it can be challenging sometimes to find anyone in mental health who sees new patients, there is value is finding out the approach and methodology that psychiatric clinicians and therapists apply in their practice. Working collaboratively with those who value a well-being orientation and who can work productively with the whole family to increase health promotion can yield benefits for a patient’s long-term physical and mental health.

The renewed interest and attention on well-being and health promotion activities that can optimize brain growth are a welcome and overdue development in mental health treatment. Pediatricians and other primary care clinicians can be a critical part of this growing initiative by gaining knowledge about youth well-being, applying this knowledge in day-to-day practice, and working collaboratively with those who share a similar perspective.
 

Dr. Rettew is a child & adolescent psychiatrist and medical director of Lane County Behavioral Health in Eugene, Oregon. He is on the psychiatry faculty at Oregon Health & Science University. You can follow him on Facebook and X @PediPsych. His latest book is Parenting Made Complicated: What Science Really Knows about the Greatest Debates of Early Childhood.

References

1. Seligman, MEP. Flourish: a visionary new understanding of happiness and well-being. New York: Simon & Schuster; 2011.

2. Jeste DV, Palmer BW. (Eds.). Positive psychiatry: a clinical handbook. Washington DC: American Psychiatric Publishing; 2015. doi: 10.1176/appi.books.9781615370818.

3. Hudziak J, Ivanova MY. The Vermont family based approach: Family based health promotion, illness prevention, and intervention. Child Adolesc Psychiatr Clin N Am. 2016 Apr;25(2):167-78. doi: 10.1016/j.chc.2015.11.002.

4. Rettew DC. Incorporating positive psychiatry with children and adolescents. Current Psychiatry. 2022 November;21(11):12-16,45. doi: 10.12788/cp.0303.

Depression is a serious issue. I want to say that off the top, because nothing below is intended to minimize it.

But does everyone need to be tested for it?

A lot of general practices test for it with every patient and every visit. After all, mandates say you have to or you’ll get penalized a few bucks. Since no one wants to leave any money on the table in the razor-thin margins of running a medical practice, they ask these questions (I don’t blame them for that).

I can see where this might be useful, but does it really do much? Or is it just a mandatory waste of time?

Good question.

A recent review by the American College of Physicians found it was mostly a waste of time (which surprises no one). Only one of the eight measures involved in depression screening (suicide risk assessment) turned out to be useful. So, basically, 88% of the time spent on these questions contributed absolutely nothing of clinical relevance.

Of course, this isn’t unique to family medicine. Every time I see a Medicare or Medicare Advantage patient I have to document whether they’ve had flu and pneumonia vaccines. While there are occasional cases where asking about recent vaccines is critical to the history, for most it’s not. But I do it so I don’t get penalized, even though the answer changes nothing. It’s not like I give vaccines in my practice.

A fair number of people come to me for hospital follow-ups, so I go into the system and review the chart. The notes inevitably contain questions of sexual activity, fear of violence, fear of domestic abuse, food security, recent travel patterns, and so on. Some of them are useful in certain situations, but not in all, or even most. All they do is increase the length of the note until anything of relevance is obscured, and allow someone in coding to check the boxes to raise the billing level. Realistically, the ER staff involved probably didn’t ask any of them, and just clicked “no.”

Once this probably seemed like a good idea, but clearly most of it is now a waste of time. These “quality measures” have turned the art of taking a good history into a session of mouse and box clicking.

Does that really improve care?
 

Dr. Block has a solo neurology practice in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Depression is a serious issue. I want to say that off the top, because nothing below is intended to minimize it.

But does everyone need to be tested for it?

A lot of general practices test for it with every patient and every visit. After all, mandates say you have to or you’ll get penalized a few bucks. Since no one wants to leave any money on the table in the razor-thin margins of running a medical practice, they ask these questions (I don’t blame them for that).

I can see where this might be useful, but does it really do much? Or is it just a mandatory waste of time?

Good question.

A recent review by the American College of Physicians found it was mostly a waste of time (which surprises no one). Only one of the eight measures involved in depression screening (suicide risk assessment) turned out to be useful. So, basically, 88% of the time spent on these questions contributed absolutely nothing of clinical relevance.

Of course, this isn’t unique to family medicine. Every time I see a Medicare or Medicare Advantage patient I have to document whether they’ve had flu and pneumonia vaccines. While there are occasional cases where asking about recent vaccines is critical to the history, for most it’s not. But I do it so I don’t get penalized, even though the answer changes nothing. It’s not like I give vaccines in my practice.

A fair number of people come to me for hospital follow-ups, so I go into the system and review the chart. The notes inevitably contain questions of sexual activity, fear of violence, fear of domestic abuse, food security, recent travel patterns, and so on. Some of them are useful in certain situations, but not in all, or even most. All they do is increase the length of the note until anything of relevance is obscured, and allow someone in coding to check the boxes to raise the billing level. Realistically, the ER staff involved probably didn’t ask any of them, and just clicked “no.”

Once this probably seemed like a good idea, but clearly most of it is now a waste of time. These “quality measures” have turned the art of taking a good history into a session of mouse and box clicking.

Does that really improve care?
 

Dr. Block has a solo neurology practice in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Depression is a serious issue. I want to say that off the top, because nothing below is intended to minimize it.

But does everyone need to be tested for it?

A lot of general practices test for it with every patient and every visit. After all, mandates say you have to or you’ll get penalized a few bucks. Since no one wants to leave any money on the table in the razor-thin margins of running a medical practice, they ask these questions (I don’t blame them for that).

I can see where this might be useful, but does it really do much? Or is it just a mandatory waste of time?

Good question.

A recent review by the American College of Physicians found it was mostly a waste of time (which surprises no one). Only one of the eight measures involved in depression screening (suicide risk assessment) turned out to be useful. So, basically, 88% of the time spent on these questions contributed absolutely nothing of clinical relevance.

Of course, this isn’t unique to family medicine. Every time I see a Medicare or Medicare Advantage patient I have to document whether they’ve had flu and pneumonia vaccines. While there are occasional cases where asking about recent vaccines is critical to the history, for most it’s not. But I do it so I don’t get penalized, even though the answer changes nothing. It’s not like I give vaccines in my practice.

A fair number of people come to me for hospital follow-ups, so I go into the system and review the chart. The notes inevitably contain questions of sexual activity, fear of violence, fear of domestic abuse, food security, recent travel patterns, and so on. Some of them are useful in certain situations, but not in all, or even most. All they do is increase the length of the note until anything of relevance is obscured, and allow someone in coding to check the boxes to raise the billing level. Realistically, the ER staff involved probably didn’t ask any of them, and just clicked “no.”

Once this probably seemed like a good idea, but clearly most of it is now a waste of time. These “quality measures” have turned the art of taking a good history into a session of mouse and box clicking.

Does that really improve care?
 

Dr. Block has a solo neurology practice in Scottsdale, Arizona.

BUDAPEST, HUNGARY — Analyzing temporal changes in people’s speech could be a simple way of detecting mild cognitive impairment (MCI) to see whether there is a risk of developing dementia in the future, suggests research.

János Kálmán, MD, PhD, and colleagues at the University of Szeged in Hungary have developed an automated speech analysis approach called the Speech-Gap Test (S-GAP Test) that is unique because it focuses on the temporal changes made when someone talks. This means it does not overcomplicate matters by also assessing the phonetics and semantics of speech, Dr. Kálmán said. 

Dr. Kálmán presented his findings at the 32nd European Congress of Psychiatry. 
 

Temporal Speech Parameters

The test analyzes parameters such as how quickly someone speaks, whether they hesitate when they talk, how long the hesitation lasts, and how many silent pauses they make. This can be done with a mere 60-second sample of speech, Dr. Kálmán said, noting that other automated speech and language tools currently in development need much longer audio samples. 

“We tried different approaches and we finally ended up with the temporal speech parameters because these are not culture-dependent, not education-dependent, and could be more reliable than the semantic parts of [speech] analysis,” he explained.

The analysis of temporal speech parameters is also not language-dependent. Although the S-GAP Test was developed using audio samples from native Hungarian speakers, Dr. Kálmán and his collaborators have shown that it works just as well with samples from native English and German speakers. They now plan to validate the test further using samples from native Spanish speakers.
 

For Screening, Not Diagnosis

Currently, “the only purpose of this tool would be initial screening,” Dr. Kálmán said at the congress. It is not for diagnosis, and there is no intention to get it registered as a medical device. 

A national survey of primary care physicians conducted by Dr. Kálmán and collaborators showed that there was little time for performing standard cognitive tests during the average consultation. Thus, the original idea was that the S-GAP Test would be an aid to help primary care physicians quickly flag whether a patient might have cognitive problems that needed further assessment at a memory clinic or by more specialist neurology services. 

The goalposts have since been moved, from developing a pure telemedicine solution to a more widespread application that perhaps anyone could buy and download from the internet or using a smartphone. 

Dr. Kálmán doesn’t discount developing a more sophisticated version of the S-GAP Test in the future that combines temporal speech parameters with biomarkers for mild cognitive impairment or Alzheimer’s disease and could be used in memory clinics and by neurologists for the purpose of diagnosis.
 

Detect to Prevent?

The big question is: What happens to all the people that could be flagged as needing further assessment using tools such as the S-GAP Test? 

Tackling risk factors for dementia will probably be key, said Robert Perneckzy, MD, MBA, professor of translational dementia research at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Imperial College London, and the University of Sheffield.

According to the Lancet Commission on dementia, there are 12 potentially modifiable risk factors for dementia. Their influence varies throughout the life course, but certain early events, such as the level of education attained, can’t be modified in an older patient. 

That said, there are many risk factors that might still be influenced later in life, such as adequately treating comorbid conditions such as diabetes, and addressing alcohol consumption and smoking practices. 

“We can do things in terms of personal risk, risk mitigation, which have a huge effect on dementia risk much later in life,” said Dr. Perneckzy.

“The speech-based assessments are another opportunity to save our time as doctors to do assessments before someone comes to the memory clinic,” he said.

The S-GAP Test is under development by the University of Szeged. Dr. Kálmán is a co-inventor. Dr. Perneckzy had no relevant conflicts of interest but has helped validate the S-GAP Test in the German language. 

A version of this article appeared on Medscape.com.

BUDAPEST, HUNGARY — Analyzing temporal changes in people’s speech could be a simple way of detecting mild cognitive impairment (MCI) to see whether there is a risk of developing dementia in the future, suggests research.

János Kálmán, MD, PhD, and colleagues at the University of Szeged in Hungary have developed an automated speech analysis approach called the Speech-Gap Test (S-GAP Test) that is unique because it focuses on the temporal changes made when someone talks. This means it does not overcomplicate matters by also assessing the phonetics and semantics of speech, Dr. Kálmán said. 

Dr. Kálmán presented his findings at the 32nd European Congress of Psychiatry. 
 

Temporal Speech Parameters

The test analyzes parameters such as how quickly someone speaks, whether they hesitate when they talk, how long the hesitation lasts, and how many silent pauses they make. This can be done with a mere 60-second sample of speech, Dr. Kálmán said, noting that other automated speech and language tools currently in development need much longer audio samples. 

“We tried different approaches and we finally ended up with the temporal speech parameters because these are not culture-dependent, not education-dependent, and could be more reliable than the semantic parts of [speech] analysis,” he explained.

The analysis of temporal speech parameters is also not language-dependent. Although the S-GAP Test was developed using audio samples from native Hungarian speakers, Dr. Kálmán and his collaborators have shown that it works just as well with samples from native English and German speakers. They now plan to validate the test further using samples from native Spanish speakers.
 

For Screening, Not Diagnosis

Currently, “the only purpose of this tool would be initial screening,” Dr. Kálmán said at the congress. It is not for diagnosis, and there is no intention to get it registered as a medical device. 

A national survey of primary care physicians conducted by Dr. Kálmán and collaborators showed that there was little time for performing standard cognitive tests during the average consultation. Thus, the original idea was that the S-GAP Test would be an aid to help primary care physicians quickly flag whether a patient might have cognitive problems that needed further assessment at a memory clinic or by more specialist neurology services. 

The goalposts have since been moved, from developing a pure telemedicine solution to a more widespread application that perhaps anyone could buy and download from the internet or using a smartphone. 

Dr. Kálmán doesn’t discount developing a more sophisticated version of the S-GAP Test in the future that combines temporal speech parameters with biomarkers for mild cognitive impairment or Alzheimer’s disease and could be used in memory clinics and by neurologists for the purpose of diagnosis.
 

Detect to Prevent?

The big question is: What happens to all the people that could be flagged as needing further assessment using tools such as the S-GAP Test? 

Tackling risk factors for dementia will probably be key, said Robert Perneckzy, MD, MBA, professor of translational dementia research at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Imperial College London, and the University of Sheffield.

According to the Lancet Commission on dementia, there are 12 potentially modifiable risk factors for dementia. Their influence varies throughout the life course, but certain early events, such as the level of education attained, can’t be modified in an older patient. 

That said, there are many risk factors that might still be influenced later in life, such as adequately treating comorbid conditions such as diabetes, and addressing alcohol consumption and smoking practices. 

“We can do things in terms of personal risk, risk mitigation, which have a huge effect on dementia risk much later in life,” said Dr. Perneckzy.

“The speech-based assessments are another opportunity to save our time as doctors to do assessments before someone comes to the memory clinic,” he said.

The S-GAP Test is under development by the University of Szeged. Dr. Kálmán is a co-inventor. Dr. Perneckzy had no relevant conflicts of interest but has helped validate the S-GAP Test in the German language. 

A version of this article appeared on Medscape.com.

BUDAPEST, HUNGARY — Analyzing temporal changes in people’s speech could be a simple way of detecting mild cognitive impairment (MCI) to see whether there is a risk of developing dementia in the future, suggests research.

János Kálmán, MD, PhD, and colleagues at the University of Szeged in Hungary have developed an automated speech analysis approach called the Speech-Gap Test (S-GAP Test) that is unique because it focuses on the temporal changes made when someone talks. This means it does not overcomplicate matters by also assessing the phonetics and semantics of speech, Dr. Kálmán said. 

Dr. Kálmán presented his findings at the 32nd European Congress of Psychiatry. 
 

Temporal Speech Parameters

The test analyzes parameters such as how quickly someone speaks, whether they hesitate when they talk, how long the hesitation lasts, and how many silent pauses they make. This can be done with a mere 60-second sample of speech, Dr. Kálmán said, noting that other automated speech and language tools currently in development need much longer audio samples. 

“We tried different approaches and we finally ended up with the temporal speech parameters because these are not culture-dependent, not education-dependent, and could be more reliable than the semantic parts of [speech] analysis,” he explained.

The analysis of temporal speech parameters is also not language-dependent. Although the S-GAP Test was developed using audio samples from native Hungarian speakers, Dr. Kálmán and his collaborators have shown that it works just as well with samples from native English and German speakers. They now plan to validate the test further using samples from native Spanish speakers.
 

For Screening, Not Diagnosis

Currently, “the only purpose of this tool would be initial screening,” Dr. Kálmán said at the congress. It is not for diagnosis, and there is no intention to get it registered as a medical device. 

A national survey of primary care physicians conducted by Dr. Kálmán and collaborators showed that there was little time for performing standard cognitive tests during the average consultation. Thus, the original idea was that the S-GAP Test would be an aid to help primary care physicians quickly flag whether a patient might have cognitive problems that needed further assessment at a memory clinic or by more specialist neurology services. 

The goalposts have since been moved, from developing a pure telemedicine solution to a more widespread application that perhaps anyone could buy and download from the internet or using a smartphone. 

Dr. Kálmán doesn’t discount developing a more sophisticated version of the S-GAP Test in the future that combines temporal speech parameters with biomarkers for mild cognitive impairment or Alzheimer’s disease and could be used in memory clinics and by neurologists for the purpose of diagnosis.
 

Detect to Prevent?

The big question is: What happens to all the people that could be flagged as needing further assessment using tools such as the S-GAP Test? 

Tackling risk factors for dementia will probably be key, said Robert Perneckzy, MD, MBA, professor of translational dementia research at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Imperial College London, and the University of Sheffield.

According to the Lancet Commission on dementia, there are 12 potentially modifiable risk factors for dementia. Their influence varies throughout the life course, but certain early events, such as the level of education attained, can’t be modified in an older patient. 

That said, there are many risk factors that might still be influenced later in life, such as adequately treating comorbid conditions such as diabetes, and addressing alcohol consumption and smoking practices. 

“We can do things in terms of personal risk, risk mitigation, which have a huge effect on dementia risk much later in life,” said Dr. Perneckzy.

“The speech-based assessments are another opportunity to save our time as doctors to do assessments before someone comes to the memory clinic,” he said.

The S-GAP Test is under development by the University of Szeged. Dr. Kálmán is a co-inventor. Dr. Perneckzy had no relevant conflicts of interest but has helped validate the S-GAP Test in the German language. 

A version of this article appeared on Medscape.com.

The appeal of working from home is undeniable. It comes with no daily commute, casual dress, and the ability to manage work-life balance more effectively.

Telemedicine is often the first thing that comes to mind when physicians think about remote medical practice. In its traditional sense, telemedicine entails live video consults, replicating the in-person experience as closely as possible, minus the hands-on component. However, this format is just one of many types of virtual care presenting opportunities to practice medicine from home.

The scope and volume of such opportunities are expanding due to technology, regulatory shifts at the state and federal levels favoring remote healthcare, and a wider move toward remote work. Virtual practice options for physicians range from full-time employment to flexible part-time positions that can be used to earn supplementary income.

Just a few of those virtual options are:

Remote Patient Monitoring

Remote patient monitoring uses technology for tracking patient health data, applicable in real-time or asynchronously, through devices ranging from specialized monitors to consumer wearables. Data are securely transmitted to healthcare providers, enabling them to guide or make treatment choices remotely. This method has proven particularly valuable in managing chronic diseases where continuous monitoring can significantly affect outcomes.

Like standard telemedicine, remote patient monitoring offers flexibility, autonomy, and the ability to work from home. It is picking up steam across the healthcare industry, especially in critical care, surgery, post-acute care, and primary care, so there are opportunities for physicians across a variety of specialties.

Online Medication Management and Text-Based Consults

Gathering necessary information for patient care decisions often doesn’t require a direct, face-to-face visit in person or by telemedicine. Clinical data can be efficiently collected through online forms, HIPAA-compliant messaging, medical record reviews, and information gathered by staff.

An approach that uses all these sources enables effective medication management for stable chronic conditions (such as hypertension), as well as straightforward but simple acute issues (such as urinary tract infections). It also is useful for quick follow-ups with patients after starting new treatments, to address questions between visits, and to give them educational material.

Some medical practices and virtual healthcare corporations have made online medication management and text-based consults the center of their business model. Part-time positions with platforms that offer this type of care let physicians fit consultations into their schedule as time permits, without committing to scheduled appointments.

eConsults

Electronic consultations, or eConsults, facilitate collaboration among healthcare professionals about complex cases without direct patient interaction.

These services operate via online platforms that support asynchronous communication and often bypass the need for a traditional referral. Typically, a primary care provider submits a query that is then assigned to a specialist. Next, the specialist reviews the information and offers recommendations for the patient’s care plan.

Major eConsult platforms such as AristaMD and RubiconMD contract with healthcare systems and medical practices. Physicians can easily join the specialist panels of these companies and complete assigned consultations from their homes or offices, paid on a per-consult basis. They should check their employment contracts to make sure such independent contract work is allowed.

Phone-Only On-Call Positions

On-call rotations for after-hour care bring with them challenges in staffing and scheduling vacations. These challenges have helped trigger as-needed or per diem on-call roles, in which a physician provides recommendations and orders over the phone without needing to visit an office or a hospital.

Examples of workplaces that employ phone-only on-call physicians include smaller jails, mental health facilities, dialysis centers, long-term care facilities, and sporting groups or events needing back-up for on-site nurses or emergency medical technicians.

While these positions can sometimes be challenging for a physician to find, they are out there. They can be a fantastic option to earn additional income through low-stress clinical work performed from home.

Supervision of Nurse Practitioners (NPs) and Physician Assistants (PAs)

In states that mandate such physician oversight, it often be conducted remotely — depending on that state’s rules, the practice type, and the scope of services being provided. This remote option introduces part-time opportunities for physicians to oversee NPs and PAs without being in the medical office. Essentially, the doctor needs to be available for phone or email consultations, complete chart reviews, and meet regularly with the provider.

Remote supervision roles are available across various types of healthcare organizations and medical practices. There also are opportunities with insurers, many of which have established NP-run, in-home member assessment programs that require remote supervision by a doctor.

Remote Medical Directorships

Medical directors are a key part of the clinician team in a wide variety of healthcare settings requiring clinical protocol oversight, regulatory compliance, and guidance for other clinicians making treatment decisions. Many directorships do not require direct patient contact and therefore are conducive to remote work, given technologies such as electronic health record and secure messaging systems.

Organizations such as emergency medical service agencies, hospice services, med spas, blood and plasma donation centers, home health agencies, and substance use disorder treatment programs increasingly rely on remote medical directorships to meet legal requirements and accreditation standards.

Although these positions are often viewed as “nonclinical,” they carry significant clinical responsibilities. Examples are developing and reviewing treatment protocols, ensuring adherence to healthcare regulations, and sometimes intervening in complex patient cases or when adverse outcomes occur.

Keeping a Role in Patient Welfare

Clearly, working from home as a physician doesn’t have to mean taking on a nonclinical job. Beyond the options already mentioned, there are numerous others — for example, working as a medical monitor for clinical trials, in utilization management for insurance companies, or in conducting independent medical exams for insurance claims. While these roles don’t involve direct patient treatment, they require similar skills and affect the quality of care.

If such remote opportunities aren’t currently available in your workplace, consider approaching your management about trying them. You can make an effective argument that remote practice alternatives bring value to the organization through expanded patient care capabilities and potential cost savings.

Physicians who are experiencing burnout, seeking a career change, or interested in earning extra income should consider exploring more of the unconventional ways that they can practice medicine.

A version of this article appeared on Medscape.com.

The appeal of working from home is undeniable. It comes with no daily commute, casual dress, and the ability to manage work-life balance more effectively.

Telemedicine is often the first thing that comes to mind when physicians think about remote medical practice. In its traditional sense, telemedicine entails live video consults, replicating the in-person experience as closely as possible, minus the hands-on component. However, this format is just one of many types of virtual care presenting opportunities to practice medicine from home.

The scope and volume of such opportunities are expanding due to technology, regulatory shifts at the state and federal levels favoring remote healthcare, and a wider move toward remote work. Virtual practice options for physicians range from full-time employment to flexible part-time positions that can be used to earn supplementary income.

Just a few of those virtual options are:

Remote Patient Monitoring

Remote patient monitoring uses technology for tracking patient health data, applicable in real-time or asynchronously, through devices ranging from specialized monitors to consumer wearables. Data are securely transmitted to healthcare providers, enabling them to guide or make treatment choices remotely. This method has proven particularly valuable in managing chronic diseases where continuous monitoring can significantly affect outcomes.

Like standard telemedicine, remote patient monitoring offers flexibility, autonomy, and the ability to work from home. It is picking up steam across the healthcare industry, especially in critical care, surgery, post-acute care, and primary care, so there are opportunities for physicians across a variety of specialties.

Online Medication Management and Text-Based Consults

Gathering necessary information for patient care decisions often doesn’t require a direct, face-to-face visit in person or by telemedicine. Clinical data can be efficiently collected through online forms, HIPAA-compliant messaging, medical record reviews, and information gathered by staff.

An approach that uses all these sources enables effective medication management for stable chronic conditions (such as hypertension), as well as straightforward but simple acute issues (such as urinary tract infections). It also is useful for quick follow-ups with patients after starting new treatments, to address questions between visits, and to give them educational material.

Some medical practices and virtual healthcare corporations have made online medication management and text-based consults the center of their business model. Part-time positions with platforms that offer this type of care let physicians fit consultations into their schedule as time permits, without committing to scheduled appointments.

eConsults

Electronic consultations, or eConsults, facilitate collaboration among healthcare professionals about complex cases without direct patient interaction.

These services operate via online platforms that support asynchronous communication and often bypass the need for a traditional referral. Typically, a primary care provider submits a query that is then assigned to a specialist. Next, the specialist reviews the information and offers recommendations for the patient’s care plan.

Major eConsult platforms such as AristaMD and RubiconMD contract with healthcare systems and medical practices. Physicians can easily join the specialist panels of these companies and complete assigned consultations from their homes or offices, paid on a per-consult basis. They should check their employment contracts to make sure such independent contract work is allowed.

Phone-Only On-Call Positions

On-call rotations for after-hour care bring with them challenges in staffing and scheduling vacations. These challenges have helped trigger as-needed or per diem on-call roles, in which a physician provides recommendations and orders over the phone without needing to visit an office or a hospital.

Examples of workplaces that employ phone-only on-call physicians include smaller jails, mental health facilities, dialysis centers, long-term care facilities, and sporting groups or events needing back-up for on-site nurses or emergency medical technicians.

While these positions can sometimes be challenging for a physician to find, they are out there. They can be a fantastic option to earn additional income through low-stress clinical work performed from home.

Supervision of Nurse Practitioners (NPs) and Physician Assistants (PAs)

In states that mandate such physician oversight, it often be conducted remotely — depending on that state’s rules, the practice type, and the scope of services being provided. This remote option introduces part-time opportunities for physicians to oversee NPs and PAs without being in the medical office. Essentially, the doctor needs to be available for phone or email consultations, complete chart reviews, and meet regularly with the provider.

Remote supervision roles are available across various types of healthcare organizations and medical practices. There also are opportunities with insurers, many of which have established NP-run, in-home member assessment programs that require remote supervision by a doctor.

Remote Medical Directorships

Medical directors are a key part of the clinician team in a wide variety of healthcare settings requiring clinical protocol oversight, regulatory compliance, and guidance for other clinicians making treatment decisions. Many directorships do not require direct patient contact and therefore are conducive to remote work, given technologies such as electronic health record and secure messaging systems.

Organizations such as emergency medical service agencies, hospice services, med spas, blood and plasma donation centers, home health agencies, and substance use disorder treatment programs increasingly rely on remote medical directorships to meet legal requirements and accreditation standards.

Although these positions are often viewed as “nonclinical,” they carry significant clinical responsibilities. Examples are developing and reviewing treatment protocols, ensuring adherence to healthcare regulations, and sometimes intervening in complex patient cases or when adverse outcomes occur.

Keeping a Role in Patient Welfare

Clearly, working from home as a physician doesn’t have to mean taking on a nonclinical job. Beyond the options already mentioned, there are numerous others — for example, working as a medical monitor for clinical trials, in utilization management for insurance companies, or in conducting independent medical exams for insurance claims. While these roles don’t involve direct patient treatment, they require similar skills and affect the quality of care.

If such remote opportunities aren’t currently available in your workplace, consider approaching your management about trying them. You can make an effective argument that remote practice alternatives bring value to the organization through expanded patient care capabilities and potential cost savings.

Physicians who are experiencing burnout, seeking a career change, or interested in earning extra income should consider exploring more of the unconventional ways that they can practice medicine.

A version of this article appeared on Medscape.com.

The appeal of working from home is undeniable. It comes with no daily commute, casual dress, and the ability to manage work-life balance more effectively.

Telemedicine is often the first thing that comes to mind when physicians think about remote medical practice. In its traditional sense, telemedicine entails live video consults, replicating the in-person experience as closely as possible, minus the hands-on component. However, this format is just one of many types of virtual care presenting opportunities to practice medicine from home.

The scope and volume of such opportunities are expanding due to technology, regulatory shifts at the state and federal levels favoring remote healthcare, and a wider move toward remote work. Virtual practice options for physicians range from full-time employment to flexible part-time positions that can be used to earn supplementary income.

Just a few of those virtual options are:

Remote Patient Monitoring

Remote patient monitoring uses technology for tracking patient health data, applicable in real-time or asynchronously, through devices ranging from specialized monitors to consumer wearables. Data are securely transmitted to healthcare providers, enabling them to guide or make treatment choices remotely. This method has proven particularly valuable in managing chronic diseases where continuous monitoring can significantly affect outcomes.

Like standard telemedicine, remote patient monitoring offers flexibility, autonomy, and the ability to work from home. It is picking up steam across the healthcare industry, especially in critical care, surgery, post-acute care, and primary care, so there are opportunities for physicians across a variety of specialties.

Online Medication Management and Text-Based Consults

Gathering necessary information for patient care decisions often doesn’t require a direct, face-to-face visit in person or by telemedicine. Clinical data can be efficiently collected through online forms, HIPAA-compliant messaging, medical record reviews, and information gathered by staff.

An approach that uses all these sources enables effective medication management for stable chronic conditions (such as hypertension), as well as straightforward but simple acute issues (such as urinary tract infections). It also is useful for quick follow-ups with patients after starting new treatments, to address questions between visits, and to give them educational material.

Some medical practices and virtual healthcare corporations have made online medication management and text-based consults the center of their business model. Part-time positions with platforms that offer this type of care let physicians fit consultations into their schedule as time permits, without committing to scheduled appointments.

eConsults

Electronic consultations, or eConsults, facilitate collaboration among healthcare professionals about complex cases without direct patient interaction.

These services operate via online platforms that support asynchronous communication and often bypass the need for a traditional referral. Typically, a primary care provider submits a query that is then assigned to a specialist. Next, the specialist reviews the information and offers recommendations for the patient’s care plan.

Major eConsult platforms such as AristaMD and RubiconMD contract with healthcare systems and medical practices. Physicians can easily join the specialist panels of these companies and complete assigned consultations from their homes or offices, paid on a per-consult basis. They should check their employment contracts to make sure such independent contract work is allowed.

Phone-Only On-Call Positions

On-call rotations for after-hour care bring with them challenges in staffing and scheduling vacations. These challenges have helped trigger as-needed or per diem on-call roles, in which a physician provides recommendations and orders over the phone without needing to visit an office or a hospital.

Examples of workplaces that employ phone-only on-call physicians include smaller jails, mental health facilities, dialysis centers, long-term care facilities, and sporting groups or events needing back-up for on-site nurses or emergency medical technicians.

While these positions can sometimes be challenging for a physician to find, they are out there. They can be a fantastic option to earn additional income through low-stress clinical work performed from home.

Supervision of Nurse Practitioners (NPs) and Physician Assistants (PAs)

In states that mandate such physician oversight, it often be conducted remotely — depending on that state’s rules, the practice type, and the scope of services being provided. This remote option introduces part-time opportunities for physicians to oversee NPs and PAs without being in the medical office. Essentially, the doctor needs to be available for phone or email consultations, complete chart reviews, and meet regularly with the provider.

Remote supervision roles are available across various types of healthcare organizations and medical practices. There also are opportunities with insurers, many of which have established NP-run, in-home member assessment programs that require remote supervision by a doctor.

Remote Medical Directorships

Medical directors are a key part of the clinician team in a wide variety of healthcare settings requiring clinical protocol oversight, regulatory compliance, and guidance for other clinicians making treatment decisions. Many directorships do not require direct patient contact and therefore are conducive to remote work, given technologies such as electronic health record and secure messaging systems.

Organizations such as emergency medical service agencies, hospice services, med spas, blood and plasma donation centers, home health agencies, and substance use disorder treatment programs increasingly rely on remote medical directorships to meet legal requirements and accreditation standards.

Although these positions are often viewed as “nonclinical,” they carry significant clinical responsibilities. Examples are developing and reviewing treatment protocols, ensuring adherence to healthcare regulations, and sometimes intervening in complex patient cases or when adverse outcomes occur.

Keeping a Role in Patient Welfare

Clearly, working from home as a physician doesn’t have to mean taking on a nonclinical job. Beyond the options already mentioned, there are numerous others — for example, working as a medical monitor for clinical trials, in utilization management for insurance companies, or in conducting independent medical exams for insurance claims. While these roles don’t involve direct patient treatment, they require similar skills and affect the quality of care.

If such remote opportunities aren’t currently available in your workplace, consider approaching your management about trying them. You can make an effective argument that remote practice alternatives bring value to the organization through expanded patient care capabilities and potential cost savings.

Physicians who are experiencing burnout, seeking a career change, or interested in earning extra income should consider exploring more of the unconventional ways that they can practice medicine.

A version of this article appeared on Medscape.com.

BUDAPEST, HUNGARY — Twice daily intranasal oxytocin has been associated with improved social functioning, quality of life, and overall symptoms in adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), results of a small randomized control trial showed.

“One of the challenges for adults with autism is experiencing poor social interactions and difficulties in making friends. Insufficient social support from peers, friends, and family members can contribute to loneliness in adolescents with ASD, which in turn leads to anxiety, sadness, and social isolation,” said study investigator Saba Faraji Niri, MD, assistant professor of psychiatry, Tehran University of Medical Sciences in Iran. 

Recent US data show it is relatively common. In addition, previous research suggests intranasal oxytocin significantly increases activity in brain regions that play a role in establishing social interactions.

To evaluate the therapeutic effects and safety of intranasal oxytocin the researchers randomly assigned 39 adult patients with ASD to receive intranasal oxytocin or placebo with 24 units administered every 12 hours for 8 weeks. 

Dr. Faraji Niri said study participants were required to stop all psychotropic medications for at least 8 weeks prior to study entry. 

Participants were assessed at baseline and weeks 4 and 8 using the Autism Quotient, Ritvo Autism Asperger Diagnostic Scale — Revised (RAADS-R), Social Responsiveness Scale (SRS), Clinical Global Impression (CGI) scale, and the World Health Organization Quality of Life-BREF (WHOQL-BREF) questionnaire. Adverse events were also evaluated.

Dr. Faraji Niri said that those receiving intranasal oxytocin showed clinical improvement on RAADS-R scores (P = .010), as well as on the social communication subscale of the SRS (P = .002), the CGI scale (P = .000), and the physical (P = .004), psychological (P = .006), and social relationships (P = .046) domains of the WHOQL-BREF. 

However, although the findings were positive, she said at this point it’s not possible to draw any definitive conclusions. She noted the study had several potential confounders. These included differences in baseline levels of endogenous oxytocin among study participants individuals, as well as difference in required treatment doses, which were adjusted by age and sex. The presence of comorbidities and interactions with other treatments could also affect the results.

Commenting on the findings for this news organization, session chair Szabolcs Kéri, PhD, Professor, Sztárai Institute, University of Tokaj, Sárospatak, Hungary, said the use of oxytocin for ASD is controversial. He said that, while the research contributes to the scientific debate, the clinical significance of the findings is unclear. 

The investigators and Dr Keri reported no relevant financial disclosures.

A version of this article appeared on Medscape.com .

BUDAPEST, HUNGARY — Twice daily intranasal oxytocin has been associated with improved social functioning, quality of life, and overall symptoms in adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), results of a small randomized control trial showed.

“One of the challenges for adults with autism is experiencing poor social interactions and difficulties in making friends. Insufficient social support from peers, friends, and family members can contribute to loneliness in adolescents with ASD, which in turn leads to anxiety, sadness, and social isolation,” said study investigator Saba Faraji Niri, MD, assistant professor of psychiatry, Tehran University of Medical Sciences in Iran. 

Recent US data show it is relatively common. In addition, previous research suggests intranasal oxytocin significantly increases activity in brain regions that play a role in establishing social interactions.

To evaluate the therapeutic effects and safety of intranasal oxytocin the researchers randomly assigned 39 adult patients with ASD to receive intranasal oxytocin or placebo with 24 units administered every 12 hours for 8 weeks. 

Dr. Faraji Niri said study participants were required to stop all psychotropic medications for at least 8 weeks prior to study entry. 

Participants were assessed at baseline and weeks 4 and 8 using the Autism Quotient, Ritvo Autism Asperger Diagnostic Scale — Revised (RAADS-R), Social Responsiveness Scale (SRS), Clinical Global Impression (CGI) scale, and the World Health Organization Quality of Life-BREF (WHOQL-BREF) questionnaire. Adverse events were also evaluated.

Dr. Faraji Niri said that those receiving intranasal oxytocin showed clinical improvement on RAADS-R scores (P = .010), as well as on the social communication subscale of the SRS (P = .002), the CGI scale (P = .000), and the physical (P = .004), psychological (P = .006), and social relationships (P = .046) domains of the WHOQL-BREF. 

However, although the findings were positive, she said at this point it’s not possible to draw any definitive conclusions. She noted the study had several potential confounders. These included differences in baseline levels of endogenous oxytocin among study participants individuals, as well as difference in required treatment doses, which were adjusted by age and sex. The presence of comorbidities and interactions with other treatments could also affect the results.

Commenting on the findings for this news organization, session chair Szabolcs Kéri, PhD, Professor, Sztárai Institute, University of Tokaj, Sárospatak, Hungary, said the use of oxytocin for ASD is controversial. He said that, while the research contributes to the scientific debate, the clinical significance of the findings is unclear. 

The investigators and Dr Keri reported no relevant financial disclosures.

A version of this article appeared on Medscape.com .

BUDAPEST, HUNGARY — Twice daily intranasal oxytocin has been associated with improved social functioning, quality of life, and overall symptoms in adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), results of a small randomized control trial showed.

“One of the challenges for adults with autism is experiencing poor social interactions and difficulties in making friends. Insufficient social support from peers, friends, and family members can contribute to loneliness in adolescents with ASD, which in turn leads to anxiety, sadness, and social isolation,” said study investigator Saba Faraji Niri, MD, assistant professor of psychiatry, Tehran University of Medical Sciences in Iran. 

Recent US data show it is relatively common. In addition, previous research suggests intranasal oxytocin significantly increases activity in brain regions that play a role in establishing social interactions.

To evaluate the therapeutic effects and safety of intranasal oxytocin the researchers randomly assigned 39 adult patients with ASD to receive intranasal oxytocin or placebo with 24 units administered every 12 hours for 8 weeks. 

Dr. Faraji Niri said study participants were required to stop all psychotropic medications for at least 8 weeks prior to study entry. 

Participants were assessed at baseline and weeks 4 and 8 using the Autism Quotient, Ritvo Autism Asperger Diagnostic Scale — Revised (RAADS-R), Social Responsiveness Scale (SRS), Clinical Global Impression (CGI) scale, and the World Health Organization Quality of Life-BREF (WHOQL-BREF) questionnaire. Adverse events were also evaluated.

Dr. Faraji Niri said that those receiving intranasal oxytocin showed clinical improvement on RAADS-R scores (P = .010), as well as on the social communication subscale of the SRS (P = .002), the CGI scale (P = .000), and the physical (P = .004), psychological (P = .006), and social relationships (P = .046) domains of the WHOQL-BREF. 

However, although the findings were positive, she said at this point it’s not possible to draw any definitive conclusions. She noted the study had several potential confounders. These included differences in baseline levels of endogenous oxytocin among study participants individuals, as well as difference in required treatment doses, which were adjusted by age and sex. The presence of comorbidities and interactions with other treatments could also affect the results.

Commenting on the findings for this news organization, session chair Szabolcs Kéri, PhD, Professor, Sztárai Institute, University of Tokaj, Sárospatak, Hungary, said the use of oxytocin for ASD is controversial. He said that, while the research contributes to the scientific debate, the clinical significance of the findings is unclear. 

The investigators and Dr Keri reported no relevant financial disclosures.

A version of this article appeared on Medscape.com .

SYNLAB and ALCEDIAG recently launched the first blood test to assist in mental health diagnosis in France. The test is aimed at differentiating bipolar disorders from depression. The news may be surprising, given the challenges in diagnosing psychiatric conditions, especially when they share common symptoms such as recurrent depression and bipolar disorder.

Psychiatrists’ reactions to the new test are cautious. Many have echoed the sentiments of the French Association of Biological Psychiatry and Neuropsychopharmacology (AFPBN) and Stéphane Jamain, PhD, director of translational neuropsychiatry research (Inserm U955, Mondor Institute of Biomedical Research), who spoke with this news organization.

Early Diagnosis

Depression and bipolar disorders are two distinct psychiatric illnesses requiring different treatments. Early and accurate diagnosis and appropriate treatment are major challenges for clinicians, especially since untreated or inadequately treated bipolar disorder can lead to significant mental and physical health consequences for patients and their families.

Published studies indicate that it takes an average of 8-10 years, and sometimes even longer, to diagnose bipolar disorder. The diagnosis is based on a psychiatric clinical examination, which is conducted by a specialist using validated questionnaires and evaluation scales.

Early and accurate diagnosis of bipolar disorders that allows for appropriate treatment would be a significant advance for patients and their families. This is what the French laboratories SYNLAB, in partnership with ALCEDIAG, propose through myEDIT-B, a blood test described as “the first validated diagnostic aid test to differentiate depression and bipolar disorders.”

Whether this test, the availability of which has somewhat surprised the psychiatric medical and scientific community, will attract psychiatrists remains to be seen.

The AFPBN stated in a press release that “to date, no test meets conditions for clinical use.” For a diagnostic test to be scientifically valid, ethical, and usable in clinical practice, its development must meet strict criteria, as highlighted by the AFPBN. The approximately 10 criteria include the validation of the scientific results in at least two independent clinical studies or cohorts, satisfactory sensitivity (detection of true positives) and specificity (detection of false negatives), and cost that is ethically responsible and allows patient access, independent of commercial interests.

ALCEDIAG has reported two clinical studies, but only one has been published so far (in Translational Psychiatry) involving 400 patients. In this case, “these patients already had a well-established psychiatric condition, did not quite present the same symptoms between patients with recurrent depression and those with bipolar disorder and were not taking the same treatments,” noted Dr. Jamain.

Differentiating between bipolar disorder and depression is crucial, especially regarding treatments, because antidepressants given to a patient with bipolar disorder can induce a manic shift if they are not accompanied by mood stabilizers, Dr. Jamain acknowledged. Nevertheless, he believes that based on what the laboratory has published, it is difficult to comment on the test at this time.

RNA Editing 

Moreover, myEDIT-B is based on a technique that measures RNA editing modifications of specific markers in patients’ blood, which could lead to differences in amino acids within proteins. The technique is unique to the ALCEDIAG laboratory, which coupled it with an artificial intelligence tool that specifically selected 8 RNA sequences for analysis from thousands of edited sequences to obtain a differential signature for unipolar and bipolar depressions. “This method is niche, the trademark of ALCEDIAG,” said Dr. Jamain, who questions the significance of this “editing” on the periphery of the CNS.

“This technique differs from that adopted by most international consortia, which are very active in this research field. The latter technique compares differences in genome [DNA] nucleotides between individuals in large cohorts involving tens of thousands of people and identifies the most frequently occurring patterns associated with a pathology to deduce a risk of developing a psychiatric illness,” said Jamain. “However, the information provided by these large-scale studies does not allow us to define who is at risk for developing the disease any more than the simple observation of the familial recurrence [heritability] of it does.” 

Scientific Validation 

While ALCEDIAG boasts a sensitivity and specificity of more than 80% for its test, the psychiatric world remains cautious. Interviewed by France Info TV, Marion Leboyer, PhD, general director of the FondaMental Foundation, psychiatrist, and researcher (at AP-HP, Inserm in Créteil, France), highlighted the importance of encouraging research on psychiatric illnesses, especially that which will contribute to the understanding and treatment of patients with bipolar disorders. But she expressed caution regarding the test because of the absence of rigorous scientific validation through clinical trials.

Regarding “ALCEDIAG’s test and its commercial aspect, caution is warranted,” said Dr. Jamain. Only time will tell if psychiatrists will prescribe this €899 test, which currently is not reimbursed by social security (see box below). ALCEDIAG plans to submit a validation dossier to the US Food and Drug Administration.

Test Not Reimbursed by Social Security

The ALCEDIAG test will be available beginning in April 2024, by prescription, in SYNLAB France network laboratories. It is intended for patients aged 18 years and older who are being treated for a moderate or severe depressive episode. Test results are transmitted within 4 weeks to the prescribing psychiatrist, who will confirm the diagnosis to the patient during a consultation. Already available in Italy, this in vitro medical device has a CE-IVD marking. In France, however, it costs €899 and is not reimbursed by social security because of insufficient clinical evidence.

This story was translated from the Medscape French edition using several editorial tools, including AI, as part of the process. Human editors reviewed this content before publication. A version of this article appeared on Medscape.com.

SYNLAB and ALCEDIAG recently launched the first blood test to assist in mental health diagnosis in France. The test is aimed at differentiating bipolar disorders from depression. The news may be surprising, given the challenges in diagnosing psychiatric conditions, especially when they share common symptoms such as recurrent depression and bipolar disorder.

Psychiatrists’ reactions to the new test are cautious. Many have echoed the sentiments of the French Association of Biological Psychiatry and Neuropsychopharmacology (AFPBN) and Stéphane Jamain, PhD, director of translational neuropsychiatry research (Inserm U955, Mondor Institute of Biomedical Research), who spoke with this news organization.

Early Diagnosis

Depression and bipolar disorders are two distinct psychiatric illnesses requiring different treatments. Early and accurate diagnosis and appropriate treatment are major challenges for clinicians, especially since untreated or inadequately treated bipolar disorder can lead to significant mental and physical health consequences for patients and their families.

Published studies indicate that it takes an average of 8-10 years, and sometimes even longer, to diagnose bipolar disorder. The diagnosis is based on a psychiatric clinical examination, which is conducted by a specialist using validated questionnaires and evaluation scales.

Early and accurate diagnosis of bipolar disorders that allows for appropriate treatment would be a significant advance for patients and their families. This is what the French laboratories SYNLAB, in partnership with ALCEDIAG, propose through myEDIT-B, a blood test described as “the first validated diagnostic aid test to differentiate depression and bipolar disorders.”

Whether this test, the availability of which has somewhat surprised the psychiatric medical and scientific community, will attract psychiatrists remains to be seen.

The AFPBN stated in a press release that “to date, no test meets conditions for clinical use.” For a diagnostic test to be scientifically valid, ethical, and usable in clinical practice, its development must meet strict criteria, as highlighted by the AFPBN. The approximately 10 criteria include the validation of the scientific results in at least two independent clinical studies or cohorts, satisfactory sensitivity (detection of true positives) and specificity (detection of false negatives), and cost that is ethically responsible and allows patient access, independent of commercial interests.

ALCEDIAG has reported two clinical studies, but only one has been published so far (in Translational Psychiatry) involving 400 patients. In this case, “these patients already had a well-established psychiatric condition, did not quite present the same symptoms between patients with recurrent depression and those with bipolar disorder and were not taking the same treatments,” noted Dr. Jamain.

Differentiating between bipolar disorder and depression is crucial, especially regarding treatments, because antidepressants given to a patient with bipolar disorder can induce a manic shift if they are not accompanied by mood stabilizers, Dr. Jamain acknowledged. Nevertheless, he believes that based on what the laboratory has published, it is difficult to comment on the test at this time.

RNA Editing 

Moreover, myEDIT-B is based on a technique that measures RNA editing modifications of specific markers in patients’ blood, which could lead to differences in amino acids within proteins. The technique is unique to the ALCEDIAG laboratory, which coupled it with an artificial intelligence tool that specifically selected 8 RNA sequences for analysis from thousands of edited sequences to obtain a differential signature for unipolar and bipolar depressions. “This method is niche, the trademark of ALCEDIAG,” said Dr. Jamain, who questions the significance of this “editing” on the periphery of the CNS.

“This technique differs from that adopted by most international consortia, which are very active in this research field. The latter technique compares differences in genome [DNA] nucleotides between individuals in large cohorts involving tens of thousands of people and identifies the most frequently occurring patterns associated with a pathology to deduce a risk of developing a psychiatric illness,” said Jamain. “However, the information provided by these large-scale studies does not allow us to define who is at risk for developing the disease any more than the simple observation of the familial recurrence [heritability] of it does.” 

Scientific Validation 

While ALCEDIAG boasts a sensitivity and specificity of more than 80% for its test, the psychiatric world remains cautious. Interviewed by France Info TV, Marion Leboyer, PhD, general director of the FondaMental Foundation, psychiatrist, and researcher (at AP-HP, Inserm in Créteil, France), highlighted the importance of encouraging research on psychiatric illnesses, especially that which will contribute to the understanding and treatment of patients with bipolar disorders. But she expressed caution regarding the test because of the absence of rigorous scientific validation through clinical trials.

Regarding “ALCEDIAG’s test and its commercial aspect, caution is warranted,” said Dr. Jamain. Only time will tell if psychiatrists will prescribe this €899 test, which currently is not reimbursed by social security (see box below). ALCEDIAG plans to submit a validation dossier to the US Food and Drug Administration.

Test Not Reimbursed by Social Security

The ALCEDIAG test will be available beginning in April 2024, by prescription, in SYNLAB France network laboratories. It is intended for patients aged 18 years and older who are being treated for a moderate or severe depressive episode. Test results are transmitted within 4 weeks to the prescribing psychiatrist, who will confirm the diagnosis to the patient during a consultation. Already available in Italy, this in vitro medical device has a CE-IVD marking. In France, however, it costs €899 and is not reimbursed by social security because of insufficient clinical evidence.

This story was translated from the Medscape French edition using several editorial tools, including AI, as part of the process. Human editors reviewed this content before publication. A version of this article appeared on Medscape.com.

SYNLAB and ALCEDIAG recently launched the first blood test to assist in mental health diagnosis in France. The test is aimed at differentiating bipolar disorders from depression. The news may be surprising, given the challenges in diagnosing psychiatric conditions, especially when they share common symptoms such as recurrent depression and bipolar disorder.

Psychiatrists’ reactions to the new test are cautious. Many have echoed the sentiments of the French Association of Biological Psychiatry and Neuropsychopharmacology (AFPBN) and Stéphane Jamain, PhD, director of translational neuropsychiatry research (Inserm U955, Mondor Institute of Biomedical Research), who spoke with this news organization.

Early Diagnosis

Depression and bipolar disorders are two distinct psychiatric illnesses requiring different treatments. Early and accurate diagnosis and appropriate treatment are major challenges for clinicians, especially since untreated or inadequately treated bipolar disorder can lead to significant mental and physical health consequences for patients and their families.

Published studies indicate that it takes an average of 8-10 years, and sometimes even longer, to diagnose bipolar disorder. The diagnosis is based on a psychiatric clinical examination, which is conducted by a specialist using validated questionnaires and evaluation scales.

Early and accurate diagnosis of bipolar disorders that allows for appropriate treatment would be a significant advance for patients and their families. This is what the French laboratories SYNLAB, in partnership with ALCEDIAG, propose through myEDIT-B, a blood test described as “the first validated diagnostic aid test to differentiate depression and bipolar disorders.”

Whether this test, the availability of which has somewhat surprised the psychiatric medical and scientific community, will attract psychiatrists remains to be seen.

The AFPBN stated in a press release that “to date, no test meets conditions for clinical use.” For a diagnostic test to be scientifically valid, ethical, and usable in clinical practice, its development must meet strict criteria, as highlighted by the AFPBN. The approximately 10 criteria include the validation of the scientific results in at least two independent clinical studies or cohorts, satisfactory sensitivity (detection of true positives) and specificity (detection of false negatives), and cost that is ethically responsible and allows patient access, independent of commercial interests.

ALCEDIAG has reported two clinical studies, but only one has been published so far (in Translational Psychiatry) involving 400 patients. In this case, “these patients already had a well-established psychiatric condition, did not quite present the same symptoms between patients with recurrent depression and those with bipolar disorder and were not taking the same treatments,” noted Dr. Jamain.

Differentiating between bipolar disorder and depression is crucial, especially regarding treatments, because antidepressants given to a patient with bipolar disorder can induce a manic shift if they are not accompanied by mood stabilizers, Dr. Jamain acknowledged. Nevertheless, he believes that based on what the laboratory has published, it is difficult to comment on the test at this time.

RNA Editing 

Moreover, myEDIT-B is based on a technique that measures RNA editing modifications of specific markers in patients’ blood, which could lead to differences in amino acids within proteins. The technique is unique to the ALCEDIAG laboratory, which coupled it with an artificial intelligence tool that specifically selected 8 RNA sequences for analysis from thousands of edited sequences to obtain a differential signature for unipolar and bipolar depressions. “This method is niche, the trademark of ALCEDIAG,” said Dr. Jamain, who questions the significance of this “editing” on the periphery of the CNS.

“This technique differs from that adopted by most international consortia, which are very active in this research field. The latter technique compares differences in genome [DNA] nucleotides between individuals in large cohorts involving tens of thousands of people and identifies the most frequently occurring patterns associated with a pathology to deduce a risk of developing a psychiatric illness,” said Jamain. “However, the information provided by these large-scale studies does not allow us to define who is at risk for developing the disease any more than the simple observation of the familial recurrence [heritability] of it does.” 

Scientific Validation 

While ALCEDIAG boasts a sensitivity and specificity of more than 80% for its test, the psychiatric world remains cautious. Interviewed by France Info TV, Marion Leboyer, PhD, general director of the FondaMental Foundation, psychiatrist, and researcher (at AP-HP, Inserm in Créteil, France), highlighted the importance of encouraging research on psychiatric illnesses, especially that which will contribute to the understanding and treatment of patients with bipolar disorders. But she expressed caution regarding the test because of the absence of rigorous scientific validation through clinical trials.

Regarding “ALCEDIAG’s test and its commercial aspect, caution is warranted,” said Dr. Jamain. Only time will tell if psychiatrists will prescribe this €899 test, which currently is not reimbursed by social security (see box below). ALCEDIAG plans to submit a validation dossier to the US Food and Drug Administration.

Test Not Reimbursed by Social Security

The ALCEDIAG test will be available beginning in April 2024, by prescription, in SYNLAB France network laboratories. It is intended for patients aged 18 years and older who are being treated for a moderate or severe depressive episode. Test results are transmitted within 4 weeks to the prescribing psychiatrist, who will confirm the diagnosis to the patient during a consultation. Already available in Italy, this in vitro medical device has a CE-IVD marking. In France, however, it costs €899 and is not reimbursed by social security because of insufficient clinical evidence.

This story was translated from the Medscape French edition using several editorial tools, including AI, as part of the process. Human editors reviewed this content before publication. A version of this article appeared on Medscape.com.

In a 2023 study published in the Annals of Emergency Medicine, European researchers fed the AI system ChatGPT information on 30 ER patients. Details included physician notes on the patients’ symptoms, physical exams, and lab results. ChatGPT made the correct diagnosis in 97% of patients compared to 87% for human doctors.

AI 1, Physicians 0

JAMA Cardiology reported in 2021 that an AI trained on nearly a million ECGs performed comparably to or exceeded cardiologist clinical diagnoses and the MUSE (GE Healthcare) system›s automated ECG analysis for most diagnostic classes.

AI 2, Physicians 0

Google’s medically focused AI model (Med-PaLM2) scored 85%+ when answering US Medical Licensing Examination–style questions. That›s an «expert» physician level and far beyond the accuracy threshold needed to pass the actual exam.

AI 3, Physicians 0

A new AI tool that uses an online finger-tapping test outperformed primary care physicians when assessing the severity of Parkinson’s disease.

AI 4, Physicians 0

JAMA Ophthalmology reported in 2024 that a chatbot outperformed glaucoma specialists and matched retina specialists in diagnostic and treatment accuracy.

AI 5, Physicians 0

Should we stop? Because we could go on. In the last few years, these AI vs Physician studies have proliferated, and guess who’s winning?

65% of Doctors are Concerned

Now, the standard answer with anything AI-and-Medicine goes something like this: AI is coming, and it will be a transformative tool for physicians and improve patient care.

But the underlying unanswered question is: Physicians spend many years and a lot of money to become really good at what they do. How, exactly, should a doctor feel about a machine that can suddenly do the job better and faster?

The Medscape 2023 Physician and AI Report surveyed 1043 US physicians about their views on AI. In total, 65% are concerned about AI making diagnosis and treatment decisions, but 56% are enthusiastic about having it as an adjunct.

Cardiologists, anesthesiologists, and radiologists are most enthusiastic about AI, whereas family physicians and pediatricians are the least enthusiastic.

To get a more personal view of how physicians and other healthcare professionals are feeling about this transformative tech, I spoke with a variety of practicing doctors, a psychotherapist, and a third-year Harvard Medical School student.

‘Abysmally Poor Understanding’

Alfredo A. Sadun, MD, PhD, has been a neuro-ophthalmologist for nearly 50 years. A graduate of MIT and vice-chair of ophthalmology at UCLA, he’s long been fascinated by AI’s march into medicine. He’s watched it accomplish things that no ophthalmologist can do, such as identify gender, age, and risk for heart attack and stroke from retinal scans. But he doesn›t see the same level of interest and comprehension among the medical community.

“There’s still an abysmally poor understanding of AI among physicians in general,” he said. “It’s striking because these are intelligent, well-educated people. But we tend to draw conclusions based on what we’re familiar with, and most doctors’ experience with computers involves EHRs [electronic health records] and administrative garbage. It’s the reason they’re burning out.”

Easing the Burden

Anthony Philippakis, MD, PhD, left his cardiology practice in 2015 to become the chief data officer at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. While there, he helped develop an AI-based method for identifying patients at risk for atrial fibrillation. Now, he’s a general partner at Google Ventures with the goal of bridging the gap between data sciences and medicine. His perspective on AI is unique, given that he’s seen the issue from both sides.

“I am not a bitter physician, but to be honest, when I was practicing, way too much of my time was spent staring at screens and not enough laying hands on patients,” he said. “Can you imagine what it would be like to speak to the EHR naturally and say, ‘Please order the following labs for this patient and notify me when the results come in.’ Boy, would that improve healthcare and physician satisfaction. Every physician I know is excited and optimistic about that. Almost everyone I’ve talked to feels like AI could take a lot of the stuff they don’t like doing off their plates.”

Indeed, the dividing line between physician support for AI and physician suspicion or skepticism of AI is just that. In our survey, more than three quarters of physicians said they would consider using AI for office administrative tasks, scheduling, EHRs, researching medical conditions, and even summarizing a patient’s record before a visit. But far fewer are supportive of it delivering diagnoses and treatments. This, despite an estimated 800,000 Americans dying or becoming permanently disabled each year because of diagnostic error.

Could AI Have Diagnosed This?

John D. Nuschke, MD, has been a primary care physician in Allentown, Pennsylvania, for 40 years. He’s a jovial general physician who insists his patients call him Jack. He’s recently started using an AI medical scribe called Freed. With the patient’s permission, it listens in on the visit and generates notes, saving Dr. Nuschke time and helping him focus on the person. He likes that type of assistance, but when it comes to AI replacing him, he’s skeptical.

“I had this patient I diagnosed with prostate cancer,” he explained. “He got treated and was fine for 5 years. Then, he started losing weight and feeling awful — got weak as a kitten. He went back to his urologist and oncologist who thought he had metastatic prostate cancer. He went through PET scans and blood work, but there was no sign his cancer had returned. So the specialists sent him back to me, and the second he walked in, I saw he was floridly hyperthyroid. I could tell across the room just by looking at him. Would AI have been able to make that diagnosis? Does AI do physical exams?”

Dr. Nuschke said he’s also had several instances where patients received their cancer diagnosis from the lab through an automated patient-portal system rather than from him. “That’s an AI of sorts, and I found it distressing,” he said.

Empathy From a Robot

All the doctors I spoke to were hopeful that by freeing them from the burden of administrative work, they would be able to return to the reason they got into this business in the first place — to spend more time with patients in need and support them with grace and compassion.

But suppose AI could do that too?

In a 2023 study conducted at the University of California San Diego and published in JAMA Internal Medicine, three licensed healthcare professionals compared the responses of ChatGPT and physicians to real-world health questions. The panel rated the AI’s answers nearly four times higher in quality and almost 10 times more empathetic than physicians’ replies.

A similar 2024 study in Nature found that Google’s large-language model AI matched or surpassed physician diagnostic accuracy in all six of the medical specialties considered. Plus, it outperformed doctors in 24 of 26 criteria for conversation quality, including politeness, explanation, honesty, and expressing care and commitment.

Nathaniel Chin, MD, is a gerontologist at the University of Wisconsin and advisory board member for the Alzheimer’s Foundation of America. Although he admits that studies like these “sadden me,” he’s also a realist. “There was hesitation among physicians at the beginning of the pandemic to virtual care because we missed the human connection,” he explained, “but we worked our way around that. We need to remember that what makes a chatbot strong is that it’s nothuman. It doesn’t burn out, it doesn’t get tired, it can look at data very quickly, and it doesn’t have to go home to a family and try to balance work with other aspects of life. A human being is very complex, whereas a chatbot has one single purpose.”

“Even if you don’t have AI in your space now or don’t like the idea of it, that doesn’t matter,” he added. “It’s coming. But it needs to be done right. If AI is implemented by clinicians for clinicians, it has great potential. But if it’s implemented by businesspeople for business reasons, perhaps not.”

‘The Ones Who Use the Tools the Best Will Be the Best’

One branch of medicine that stands to be dramatically affected by AI is mental health. Because bots are natural data-crunchers, they are becoming adept at analyzing the many subtle clues (phrasing in social media posts and text messages, smartwatch biometrics, therapy session videos…) that could indicate depression or other psychological disorders. In fact, its availability via smartphone apps could help democratize and destigmatize the practice.

“There is a day ahead — probably within 5 years — when a patient won’t be able to tell the difference between a real therapist and an AI therapist,” said Ken Mallon, MS, LMFT, a clinical psychotherapist and data scientist in San Jose, California. “That doesn’t worry me, though. It’s hard on therapists’ egos, but new technologies get developed. Things change. People who embrace these tools will benefit from them. The ones who use the tools the best will be the best.”

Time to Restructure Med School

Aditya Jain is in his third year at Harvard Medical School. At age 24, he’s heading into this brave new medical world with excitement and anxiety. Excitement because he sees AI revolutionizing healthcare on every level. Although the current generations of physicians and patients may grumble about its onset, he believes younger ones will feel comfortable with “DocGPT.” He’s excited that his generation of physicians will be the “translators and managers of this transition” and redefine “what it means to be a doctor.”

His anxiety, however, stems from the fact that AI has come on so fast that “it has not yet crossed the threshold of medical education,” he said. “Medical schools still largely prepare students to work as solo clinical decision makers. Most of my first 2 years were spent on pattern recognition and rote memorization, skills that AI can and will master.”

Indeed, Mr. Jain said AI was not a part of his first- or second-year curriculum. “I talk to students who are a year older than me, graduating, heading to residency, and they tell me they wish they had gotten a better grasp of how to use these technologies in medicine and in their practice. They were surprised to hear that people in my year hadn’t started using ChatGPT. We need to expend a lot more effort within the field, within academia, within practicing physicians, to figure out what our role will be in a world where AI is matching or even exceeding human intelligence. And then we need to restructure the medical education to better accomplish these goals.”

So Are You Ready for AI to Be a Better Doctor Than You?

“Yes, I am,” said Dr. Philippakis without hesitation. “When I was going through my medical training, I was continually confronted with the reality that I personally was not smart enough to keep all the information in my head that could be used to make a good decision for a patient. We have now reached a point where the amount of information that is important and useful in the practice of medicine outstrips what a human being can know. The opportunity to enable physicians with AI to remedy that situation is a good thing for doctors and, most importantly, a good thing for patients. I believe the future of medicine belongs not so much to the AI practitioner but to the AI-enabled practitioner.”

“Quick story,” added Dr. Chin. “I asked ChatGPT two questions. The first was ‘Explain the difference between Alzheimer’s and dementia’ because that’s the most common misconception in my field. And it gave me a pretty darn good answer — one I would use in a presentation with some tweaking. Then I asked it, ‘Are you a better doctor than me?’ And it replied, ‘My purpose is not to replace you, my purpose is to be supportive of you and enhance your ability.’ ”

A version of this article appeared on Medscape.com.

In a 2023 study published in the Annals of Emergency Medicine, European researchers fed the AI system ChatGPT information on 30 ER patients. Details included physician notes on the patients’ symptoms, physical exams, and lab results. ChatGPT made the correct diagnosis in 97% of patients compared to 87% for human doctors.

AI 1, Physicians 0

JAMA Cardiology reported in 2021 that an AI trained on nearly a million ECGs performed comparably to or exceeded cardiologist clinical diagnoses and the MUSE (GE Healthcare) system›s automated ECG analysis for most diagnostic classes.

AI 2, Physicians 0

Google’s medically focused AI model (Med-PaLM2) scored 85%+ when answering US Medical Licensing Examination–style questions. That›s an «expert» physician level and far beyond the accuracy threshold needed to pass the actual exam.

AI 3, Physicians 0

A new AI tool that uses an online finger-tapping test outperformed primary care physicians when assessing the severity of Parkinson’s disease.

AI 4, Physicians 0

JAMA Ophthalmology reported in 2024 that a chatbot outperformed glaucoma specialists and matched retina specialists in diagnostic and treatment accuracy.

AI 5, Physicians 0

Should we stop? Because we could go on. In the last few years, these AI vs Physician studies have proliferated, and guess who’s winning?

65% of Doctors are Concerned

Now, the standard answer with anything AI-and-Medicine goes something like this: AI is coming, and it will be a transformative tool for physicians and improve patient care.

But the underlying unanswered question is: Physicians spend many years and a lot of money to become really good at what they do. How, exactly, should a doctor feel about a machine that can suddenly do the job better and faster?

The Medscape 2023 Physician and AI Report surveyed 1043 US physicians about their views on AI. In total, 65% are concerned about AI making diagnosis and treatment decisions, but 56% are enthusiastic about having it as an adjunct.

Cardiologists, anesthesiologists, and radiologists are most enthusiastic about AI, whereas family physicians and pediatricians are the least enthusiastic.

To get a more personal view of how physicians and other healthcare professionals are feeling about this transformative tech, I spoke with a variety of practicing doctors, a psychotherapist, and a third-year Harvard Medical School student.

‘Abysmally Poor Understanding’

Alfredo A. Sadun, MD, PhD, has been a neuro-ophthalmologist for nearly 50 years. A graduate of MIT and vice-chair of ophthalmology at UCLA, he’s long been fascinated by AI’s march into medicine. He’s watched it accomplish things that no ophthalmologist can do, such as identify gender, age, and risk for heart attack and stroke from retinal scans. But he doesn›t see the same level of interest and comprehension among the medical community.

“There’s still an abysmally poor understanding of AI among physicians in general,” he said. “It’s striking because these are intelligent, well-educated people. But we tend to draw conclusions based on what we’re familiar with, and most doctors’ experience with computers involves EHRs [electronic health records] and administrative garbage. It’s the reason they’re burning out.”

Easing the Burden

Anthony Philippakis, MD, PhD, left his cardiology practice in 2015 to become the chief data officer at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. While there, he helped develop an AI-based method for identifying patients at risk for atrial fibrillation. Now, he’s a general partner at Google Ventures with the goal of bridging the gap between data sciences and medicine. His perspective on AI is unique, given that he’s seen the issue from both sides.

“I am not a bitter physician, but to be honest, when I was practicing, way too much of my time was spent staring at screens and not enough laying hands on patients,” he said. “Can you imagine what it would be like to speak to the EHR naturally and say, ‘Please order the following labs for this patient and notify me when the results come in.’ Boy, would that improve healthcare and physician satisfaction. Every physician I know is excited and optimistic about that. Almost everyone I’ve talked to feels like AI could take a lot of the stuff they don’t like doing off their plates.”

Indeed, the dividing line between physician support for AI and physician suspicion or skepticism of AI is just that. In our survey, more than three quarters of physicians said they would consider using AI for office administrative tasks, scheduling, EHRs, researching medical conditions, and even summarizing a patient’s record before a visit. But far fewer are supportive of it delivering diagnoses and treatments. This, despite an estimated 800,000 Americans dying or becoming permanently disabled each year because of diagnostic error.

Could AI Have Diagnosed This?

John D. Nuschke, MD, has been a primary care physician in Allentown, Pennsylvania, for 40 years. He’s a jovial general physician who insists his patients call him Jack. He’s recently started using an AI medical scribe called Freed. With the patient’s permission, it listens in on the visit and generates notes, saving Dr. Nuschke time and helping him focus on the person. He likes that type of assistance, but when it comes to AI replacing him, he’s skeptical.

“I had this patient I diagnosed with prostate cancer,” he explained. “He got treated and was fine for 5 years. Then, he started losing weight and feeling awful — got weak as a kitten. He went back to his urologist and oncologist who thought he had metastatic prostate cancer. He went through PET scans and blood work, but there was no sign his cancer had returned. So the specialists sent him back to me, and the second he walked in, I saw he was floridly hyperthyroid. I could tell across the room just by looking at him. Would AI have been able to make that diagnosis? Does AI do physical exams?”

Dr. Nuschke said he’s also had several instances where patients received their cancer diagnosis from the lab through an automated patient-portal system rather than from him. “That’s an AI of sorts, and I found it distressing,” he said.

Empathy From a Robot

All the doctors I spoke to were hopeful that by freeing them from the burden of administrative work, they would be able to return to the reason they got into this business in the first place — to spend more time with patients in need and support them with grace and compassion.

But suppose AI could do that too?

In a 2023 study conducted at the University of California San Diego and published in JAMA Internal Medicine, three licensed healthcare professionals compared the responses of ChatGPT and physicians to real-world health questions. The panel rated the AI’s answers nearly four times higher in quality and almost 10 times more empathetic than physicians’ replies.

A similar 2024 study in Nature found that Google’s large-language model AI matched or surpassed physician diagnostic accuracy in all six of the medical specialties considered. Plus, it outperformed doctors in 24 of 26 criteria for conversation quality, including politeness, explanation, honesty, and expressing care and commitment.

Nathaniel Chin, MD, is a gerontologist at the University of Wisconsin and advisory board member for the Alzheimer’s Foundation of America. Although he admits that studies like these “sadden me,” he’s also a realist. “There was hesitation among physicians at the beginning of the pandemic to virtual care because we missed the human connection,” he explained, “but we worked our way around that. We need to remember that what makes a chatbot strong is that it’s nothuman. It doesn’t burn out, it doesn’t get tired, it can look at data very quickly, and it doesn’t have to go home to a family and try to balance work with other aspects of life. A human being is very complex, whereas a chatbot has one single purpose.”

“Even if you don’t have AI in your space now or don’t like the idea of it, that doesn’t matter,” he added. “It’s coming. But it needs to be done right. If AI is implemented by clinicians for clinicians, it has great potential. But if it’s implemented by businesspeople for business reasons, perhaps not.”

‘The Ones Who Use the Tools the Best Will Be the Best’

One branch of medicine that stands to be dramatically affected by AI is mental health. Because bots are natural data-crunchers, they are becoming adept at analyzing the many subtle clues (phrasing in social media posts and text messages, smartwatch biometrics, therapy session videos…) that could indicate depression or other psychological disorders. In fact, its availability via smartphone apps could help democratize and destigmatize the practice.

“There is a day ahead — probably within 5 years — when a patient won’t be able to tell the difference between a real therapist and an AI therapist,” said Ken Mallon, MS, LMFT, a clinical psychotherapist and data scientist in San Jose, California. “That doesn’t worry me, though. It’s hard on therapists’ egos, but new technologies get developed. Things change. People who embrace these tools will benefit from them. The ones who use the tools the best will be the best.”

Time to Restructure Med School

Aditya Jain is in his third year at Harvard Medical School. At age 24, he’s heading into this brave new medical world with excitement and anxiety. Excitement because he sees AI revolutionizing healthcare on every level. Although the current generations of physicians and patients may grumble about its onset, he believes younger ones will feel comfortable with “DocGPT.” He’s excited that his generation of physicians will be the “translators and managers of this transition” and redefine “what it means to be a doctor.”

His anxiety, however, stems from the fact that AI has come on so fast that “it has not yet crossed the threshold of medical education,” he said. “Medical schools still largely prepare students to work as solo clinical decision makers. Most of my first 2 years were spent on pattern recognition and rote memorization, skills that AI can and will master.”

Indeed, Mr. Jain said AI was not a part of his first- or second-year curriculum. “I talk to students who are a year older than me, graduating, heading to residency, and they tell me they wish they had gotten a better grasp of how to use these technologies in medicine and in their practice. They were surprised to hear that people in my year hadn’t started using ChatGPT. We need to expend a lot more effort within the field, within academia, within practicing physicians, to figure out what our role will be in a world where AI is matching or even exceeding human intelligence. And then we need to restructure the medical education to better accomplish these goals.”

So Are You Ready for AI to Be a Better Doctor Than You?

“Yes, I am,” said Dr. Philippakis without hesitation. “When I was going through my medical training, I was continually confronted with the reality that I personally was not smart enough to keep all the information in my head that could be used to make a good decision for a patient. We have now reached a point where the amount of information that is important and useful in the practice of medicine outstrips what a human being can know. The opportunity to enable physicians with AI to remedy that situation is a good thing for doctors and, most importantly, a good thing for patients. I believe the future of medicine belongs not so much to the AI practitioner but to the AI-enabled practitioner.”

“Quick story,” added Dr. Chin. “I asked ChatGPT two questions. The first was ‘Explain the difference between Alzheimer’s and dementia’ because that’s the most common misconception in my field. And it gave me a pretty darn good answer — one I would use in a presentation with some tweaking. Then I asked it, ‘Are you a better doctor than me?’ And it replied, ‘My purpose is not to replace you, my purpose is to be supportive of you and enhance your ability.’ ”

A version of this article appeared on Medscape.com.

In a 2023 study published in the Annals of Emergency Medicine, European researchers fed the AI system ChatGPT information on 30 ER patients. Details included physician notes on the patients’ symptoms, physical exams, and lab results. ChatGPT made the correct diagnosis in 97% of patients compared to 87% for human doctors.

AI 1, Physicians 0

JAMA Cardiology reported in 2021 that an AI trained on nearly a million ECGs performed comparably to or exceeded cardiologist clinical diagnoses and the MUSE (GE Healthcare) system›s automated ECG analysis for most diagnostic classes.

AI 2, Physicians 0

Google’s medically focused AI model (Med-PaLM2) scored 85%+ when answering US Medical Licensing Examination–style questions. That›s an «expert» physician level and far beyond the accuracy threshold needed to pass the actual exam.

AI 3, Physicians 0

A new AI tool that uses an online finger-tapping test outperformed primary care physicians when assessing the severity of Parkinson’s disease.

AI 4, Physicians 0

JAMA Ophthalmology reported in 2024 that a chatbot outperformed glaucoma specialists and matched retina specialists in diagnostic and treatment accuracy.

AI 5, Physicians 0

Should we stop? Because we could go on. In the last few years, these AI vs Physician studies have proliferated, and guess who’s winning?

65% of Doctors are Concerned

Now, the standard answer with anything AI-and-Medicine goes something like this: AI is coming, and it will be a transformative tool for physicians and improve patient care.

But the underlying unanswered question is: Physicians spend many years and a lot of money to become really good at what they do. How, exactly, should a doctor feel about a machine that can suddenly do the job better and faster?

The Medscape 2023 Physician and AI Report surveyed 1043 US physicians about their views on AI. In total, 65% are concerned about AI making diagnosis and treatment decisions, but 56% are enthusiastic about having it as an adjunct.

Cardiologists, anesthesiologists, and radiologists are most enthusiastic about AI, whereas family physicians and pediatricians are the least enthusiastic.

To get a more personal view of how physicians and other healthcare professionals are feeling about this transformative tech, I spoke with a variety of practicing doctors, a psychotherapist, and a third-year Harvard Medical School student.

‘Abysmally Poor Understanding’

Alfredo A. Sadun, MD, PhD, has been a neuro-ophthalmologist for nearly 50 years. A graduate of MIT and vice-chair of ophthalmology at UCLA, he’s long been fascinated by AI’s march into medicine. He’s watched it accomplish things that no ophthalmologist can do, such as identify gender, age, and risk for heart attack and stroke from retinal scans. But he doesn›t see the same level of interest and comprehension among the medical community.

“There’s still an abysmally poor understanding of AI among physicians in general,” he said. “It’s striking because these are intelligent, well-educated people. But we tend to draw conclusions based on what we’re familiar with, and most doctors’ experience with computers involves EHRs [electronic health records] and administrative garbage. It’s the reason they’re burning out.”

Easing the Burden

Anthony Philippakis, MD, PhD, left his cardiology practice in 2015 to become the chief data officer at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. While there, he helped develop an AI-based method for identifying patients at risk for atrial fibrillation. Now, he’s a general partner at Google Ventures with the goal of bridging the gap between data sciences and medicine. His perspective on AI is unique, given that he’s seen the issue from both sides.

“I am not a bitter physician, but to be honest, when I was practicing, way too much of my time was spent staring at screens and not enough laying hands on patients,” he said. “Can you imagine what it would be like to speak to the EHR naturally and say, ‘Please order the following labs for this patient and notify me when the results come in.’ Boy, would that improve healthcare and physician satisfaction. Every physician I know is excited and optimistic about that. Almost everyone I’ve talked to feels like AI could take a lot of the stuff they don’t like doing off their plates.”

Indeed, the dividing line between physician support for AI and physician suspicion or skepticism of AI is just that. In our survey, more than three quarters of physicians said they would consider using AI for office administrative tasks, scheduling, EHRs, researching medical conditions, and even summarizing a patient’s record before a visit. But far fewer are supportive of it delivering diagnoses and treatments. This, despite an estimated 800,000 Americans dying or becoming permanently disabled each year because of diagnostic error.

Could AI Have Diagnosed This?

John D. Nuschke, MD, has been a primary care physician in Allentown, Pennsylvania, for 40 years. He’s a jovial general physician who insists his patients call him Jack. He’s recently started using an AI medical scribe called Freed. With the patient’s permission, it listens in on the visit and generates notes, saving Dr. Nuschke time and helping him focus on the person. He likes that type of assistance, but when it comes to AI replacing him, he’s skeptical.

“I had this patient I diagnosed with prostate cancer,” he explained. “He got treated and was fine for 5 years. Then, he started losing weight and feeling awful — got weak as a kitten. He went back to his urologist and oncologist who thought he had metastatic prostate cancer. He went through PET scans and blood work, but there was no sign his cancer had returned. So the specialists sent him back to me, and the second he walked in, I saw he was floridly hyperthyroid. I could tell across the room just by looking at him. Would AI have been able to make that diagnosis? Does AI do physical exams?”

Dr. Nuschke said he’s also had several instances where patients received their cancer diagnosis from the lab through an automated patient-portal system rather than from him. “That’s an AI of sorts, and I found it distressing,” he said.

Empathy From a Robot

All the doctors I spoke to were hopeful that by freeing them from the burden of administrative work, they would be able to return to the reason they got into this business in the first place — to spend more time with patients in need and support them with grace and compassion.

But suppose AI could do that too?

In a 2023 study conducted at the University of California San Diego and published in JAMA Internal Medicine, three licensed healthcare professionals compared the responses of ChatGPT and physicians to real-world health questions. The panel rated the AI’s answers nearly four times higher in quality and almost 10 times more empathetic than physicians’ replies.

A similar 2024 study in Nature found that Google’s large-language model AI matched or surpassed physician diagnostic accuracy in all six of the medical specialties considered. Plus, it outperformed doctors in 24 of 26 criteria for conversation quality, including politeness, explanation, honesty, and expressing care and commitment.

Nathaniel Chin, MD, is a gerontologist at the University of Wisconsin and advisory board member for the Alzheimer’s Foundation of America. Although he admits that studies like these “sadden me,” he’s also a realist. “There was hesitation among physicians at the beginning of the pandemic to virtual care because we missed the human connection,” he explained, “but we worked our way around that. We need to remember that what makes a chatbot strong is that it’s nothuman. It doesn’t burn out, it doesn’t get tired, it can look at data very quickly, and it doesn’t have to go home to a family and try to balance work with other aspects of life. A human being is very complex, whereas a chatbot has one single purpose.”

“Even if you don’t have AI in your space now or don’t like the idea of it, that doesn’t matter,” he added. “It’s coming. But it needs to be done right. If AI is implemented by clinicians for clinicians, it has great potential. But if it’s implemented by businesspeople for business reasons, perhaps not.”

‘The Ones Who Use the Tools the Best Will Be the Best’

One branch of medicine that stands to be dramatically affected by AI is mental health. Because bots are natural data-crunchers, they are becoming adept at analyzing the many subtle clues (phrasing in social media posts and text messages, smartwatch biometrics, therapy session videos…) that could indicate depression or other psychological disorders. In fact, its availability via smartphone apps could help democratize and destigmatize the practice.

“There is a day ahead — probably within 5 years — when a patient won’t be able to tell the difference between a real therapist and an AI therapist,” said Ken Mallon, MS, LMFT, a clinical psychotherapist and data scientist in San Jose, California. “That doesn’t worry me, though. It’s hard on therapists’ egos, but new technologies get developed. Things change. People who embrace these tools will benefit from them. The ones who use the tools the best will be the best.”

Time to Restructure Med School

Aditya Jain is in his third year at Harvard Medical School. At age 24, he’s heading into this brave new medical world with excitement and anxiety. Excitement because he sees AI revolutionizing healthcare on every level. Although the current generations of physicians and patients may grumble about its onset, he believes younger ones will feel comfortable with “DocGPT.” He’s excited that his generation of physicians will be the “translators and managers of this transition” and redefine “what it means to be a doctor.”

His anxiety, however, stems from the fact that AI has come on so fast that “it has not yet crossed the threshold of medical education,” he said. “Medical schools still largely prepare students to work as solo clinical decision makers. Most of my first 2 years were spent on pattern recognition and rote memorization, skills that AI can and will master.”

Indeed, Mr. Jain said AI was not a part of his first- or second-year curriculum. “I talk to students who are a year older than me, graduating, heading to residency, and they tell me they wish they had gotten a better grasp of how to use these technologies in medicine and in their practice. They were surprised to hear that people in my year hadn’t started using ChatGPT. We need to expend a lot more effort within the field, within academia, within practicing physicians, to figure out what our role will be in a world where AI is matching or even exceeding human intelligence. And then we need to restructure the medical education to better accomplish these goals.”

So Are You Ready for AI to Be a Better Doctor Than You?

“Yes, I am,” said Dr. Philippakis without hesitation. “When I was going through my medical training, I was continually confronted with the reality that I personally was not smart enough to keep all the information in my head that could be used to make a good decision for a patient. We have now reached a point where the amount of information that is important and useful in the practice of medicine outstrips what a human being can know. The opportunity to enable physicians with AI to remedy that situation is a good thing for doctors and, most importantly, a good thing for patients. I believe the future of medicine belongs not so much to the AI practitioner but to the AI-enabled practitioner.”

“Quick story,” added Dr. Chin. “I asked ChatGPT two questions. The first was ‘Explain the difference between Alzheimer’s and dementia’ because that’s the most common misconception in my field. And it gave me a pretty darn good answer — one I would use in a presentation with some tweaking. Then I asked it, ‘Are you a better doctor than me?’ And it replied, ‘My purpose is not to replace you, my purpose is to be supportive of you and enhance your ability.’ ”

A version of this article appeared on Medscape.com.

A smartphone-based tool that tracks mental health status by detecting changes in voice may complement traditional psychiatric assessments and improve an individual’s ability to self-monitor depressive and other mental health symptoms, new research suggested.

Investigators used the Mental Fitness Vocal Biomarker (MFVB) scoring algorithm, which is incorporated into a smartphone voice journaling application, to detect increased or decreased risk for elevated mental health symptom severity by analyzing 30-second free speech voice recordings for specific vocal patterns previously linked to mental health.

A comparison between MFVB scores and commonly used clinical mental health assessments revealed a statistically significant correlation, researchers noted.

“While the MFVB tool is not intended to diagnose or treat mental health conditions, these findings provide a robust initial foundation upon which to further explore its potential in personalized wellness tracking, which has so far not yet been able to extend measurement of physical health to mental wellbeing,” reported the researchers, led by Erik Larsen, PhD, with Boston-based Sonde Health, which developed the tool.

The study was published online in Frontiers in Psychiatry.
 

Eight Vocal Features

The potential value of vocal biomarkers for mental health assessment has gained increasing attention.

“Somebody that is depressed often sounds more monotone; they may have less inflection in their voice and speak slower with less energy, which can be recognized in voice recordings,” Dr. Larsen told this news organization.

“This is an area which has received quite a bit of research in the last few decades to find out what specific aspects of acoustics and rhythm of speech could point to conditions like depression,” Dr. Larsen said.

In the current study, the researchers set out to validate the ability of the MFVB platform to detect mental health symptoms.

With the tool, users record their thoughts and feelings as a 30-second voice journal. The tool analyzes the recordings for eight vocal features previously shown to be relevant to mental health. These include jitter, shimmer, pitch variability, energy variability, vowel space, phonation duration, speech rate, and pause duration.

The tool calculates a real-time MFVB score ranging from 0 to 100. A score of 80-100 is defined as “excellent” and 70-79 as “good,” while a score of 0-69 is categorized as “pay attention.” It was trained on more than 1 million voice samples to optimize performance across a diverse range of cultures, languages, and socioeconomic groups.

The current study included 104 outpatient psychiatric patients (73% women) with anxiety-related diagnoses, trauma, and stress-related disorders or depressive disorders. The cohort was mostly made up of White, non-Hispanic young adults. Patients with a history of substance abuse or who were taking psychiatric medications that may affect voice and speech were excluded.

During the 4-week study period, participants conducted 1336 app sessions with voice recordings, resulting in an average of 12.8 sessions per participant, or 3.2 per week.

MFVB scores were cross-referenced against the results of participants’ M3 Checklist, a clinically validated mental health assessment tool.

Over a period of 2 weeks, participants were twice as likely to report elevated mental health symptoms if their MFVB scores remained in the “pay attention” range vs in the “excellent” range, the researchers found.

The effect was more pronounced in those who used the app more frequently, with frequent users 8.5 times more likely to show elevated symptoms.

The correlation between MFVB scores and established mental health assessments was “not only statistically significant but also meaningful for participants,” researchers wrote. Subgroup analyses suggest the app works best for depression and stress- and trauma-related disorders.

The tool provides psychiatric outpatients with “immediate quantitative feedback on their mental health symptom severity,” the researchers noted.

In their paper, the investigators caution that the results highlight the “general ability” of MFVB score categories to differentiate mental health symptom severity levels but do not distinguish what type of symptoms these may be, such as depression, anxiety, or posttraumatic stress disorder.

In a statement, study investigator Lindsey Venesky, PhD, psychologist and clinical director at the Cognitive Behavior Institute in Pittsburgh, noted that the ability to collect mental health data from patients between clinic visits “could transform how we monitor symptoms and optimize treatment plans.”

“Voice-based health tracking technology can provide accurate insights into a client’s mental health status over time and can do so seamlessly and unobtrusively, with little added effort for clients,” Dr. Venesky said.

Need for Replication, Validation

Commenting on the findings, John Torous, MD, director of the division of digital psychiatry at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, noted that “over the last 20 years, there has been a lot of interest in voice biomarkers, yet somehow that research has never been translated into mainstream clinical care.”

Voice biomarkers are “relevant and have potential” in mental health, he noted. The findings in this study are “interesting, but they need to be thoroughly externally replicated and validated to show that these biomarkers are valid and reliable,” Dr. Torous added.

Changes in voice are part of the mental status exam, Dr. Torous said, “but it’s only one piece of information that we collect in a clinical assessment of many pieces of information.”

Dr. Torous also cautioned that “as a practicing psychiatrist, it can be tricky to be given new data if you don’t know how to interpret it or what it means. An important step would be education, outreach, and resources for physicians to learn about potential voice biomarkers.”

The authors received internal financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. The pilot phase of the study at St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton was partially supported through Mitacs Accelerate International, Canada. Dr. Larsen and three coauthors are employed by Sonde Health. Dr. Torous had no relevant conflicts of interest.

A version of this article appeared on Medscape.com.

A smartphone-based tool that tracks mental health status by detecting changes in voice may complement traditional psychiatric assessments and improve an individual’s ability to self-monitor depressive and other mental health symptoms, new research suggested.

Investigators used the Mental Fitness Vocal Biomarker (MFVB) scoring algorithm, which is incorporated into a smartphone voice journaling application, to detect increased or decreased risk for elevated mental health symptom severity by analyzing 30-second free speech voice recordings for specific vocal patterns previously linked to mental health.

A comparison between MFVB scores and commonly used clinical mental health assessments revealed a statistically significant correlation, researchers noted.

“While the MFVB tool is not intended to diagnose or treat mental health conditions, these findings provide a robust initial foundation upon which to further explore its potential in personalized wellness tracking, which has so far not yet been able to extend measurement of physical health to mental wellbeing,” reported the researchers, led by Erik Larsen, PhD, with Boston-based Sonde Health, which developed the tool.

The study was published online in Frontiers in Psychiatry.
 

Eight Vocal Features

The potential value of vocal biomarkers for mental health assessment has gained increasing attention.

“Somebody that is depressed often sounds more monotone; they may have less inflection in their voice and speak slower with less energy, which can be recognized in voice recordings,” Dr. Larsen told this news organization.

“This is an area which has received quite a bit of research in the last few decades to find out what specific aspects of acoustics and rhythm of speech could point to conditions like depression,” Dr. Larsen said.

In the current study, the researchers set out to validate the ability of the MFVB platform to detect mental health symptoms.

With the tool, users record their thoughts and feelings as a 30-second voice journal. The tool analyzes the recordings for eight vocal features previously shown to be relevant to mental health. These include jitter, shimmer, pitch variability, energy variability, vowel space, phonation duration, speech rate, and pause duration.

The tool calculates a real-time MFVB score ranging from 0 to 100. A score of 80-100 is defined as “excellent” and 70-79 as “good,” while a score of 0-69 is categorized as “pay attention.” It was trained on more than 1 million voice samples to optimize performance across a diverse range of cultures, languages, and socioeconomic groups.

The current study included 104 outpatient psychiatric patients (73% women) with anxiety-related diagnoses, trauma, and stress-related disorders or depressive disorders. The cohort was mostly made up of White, non-Hispanic young adults. Patients with a history of substance abuse or who were taking psychiatric medications that may affect voice and speech were excluded.

During the 4-week study period, participants conducted 1336 app sessions with voice recordings, resulting in an average of 12.8 sessions per participant, or 3.2 per week.

MFVB scores were cross-referenced against the results of participants’ M3 Checklist, a clinically validated mental health assessment tool.

Over a period of 2 weeks, participants were twice as likely to report elevated mental health symptoms if their MFVB scores remained in the “pay attention” range vs in the “excellent” range, the researchers found.

The effect was more pronounced in those who used the app more frequently, with frequent users 8.5 times more likely to show elevated symptoms.

The correlation between MFVB scores and established mental health assessments was “not only statistically significant but also meaningful for participants,” researchers wrote. Subgroup analyses suggest the app works best for depression and stress- and trauma-related disorders.

The tool provides psychiatric outpatients with “immediate quantitative feedback on their mental health symptom severity,” the researchers noted.

In their paper, the investigators caution that the results highlight the “general ability” of MFVB score categories to differentiate mental health symptom severity levels but do not distinguish what type of symptoms these may be, such as depression, anxiety, or posttraumatic stress disorder.

In a statement, study investigator Lindsey Venesky, PhD, psychologist and clinical director at the Cognitive Behavior Institute in Pittsburgh, noted that the ability to collect mental health data from patients between clinic visits “could transform how we monitor symptoms and optimize treatment plans.”

“Voice-based health tracking technology can provide accurate insights into a client’s mental health status over time and can do so seamlessly and unobtrusively, with little added effort for clients,” Dr. Venesky said.

Need for Replication, Validation

Commenting on the findings, John Torous, MD, director of the division of digital psychiatry at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, noted that “over the last 20 years, there has been a lot of interest in voice biomarkers, yet somehow that research has never been translated into mainstream clinical care.”

Voice biomarkers are “relevant and have potential” in mental health, he noted. The findings in this study are “interesting, but they need to be thoroughly externally replicated and validated to show that these biomarkers are valid and reliable,” Dr. Torous added.

Changes in voice are part of the mental status exam, Dr. Torous said, “but it’s only one piece of information that we collect in a clinical assessment of many pieces of information.”

Dr. Torous also cautioned that “as a practicing psychiatrist, it can be tricky to be given new data if you don’t know how to interpret it or what it means. An important step would be education, outreach, and resources for physicians to learn about potential voice biomarkers.”

The authors received internal financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. The pilot phase of the study at St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton was partially supported through Mitacs Accelerate International, Canada. Dr. Larsen and three coauthors are employed by Sonde Health. Dr. Torous had no relevant conflicts of interest.

A version of this article appeared on Medscape.com.

A smartphone-based tool that tracks mental health status by detecting changes in voice may complement traditional psychiatric assessments and improve an individual’s ability to self-monitor depressive and other mental health symptoms, new research suggested.

Investigators used the Mental Fitness Vocal Biomarker (MFVB) scoring algorithm, which is incorporated into a smartphone voice journaling application, to detect increased or decreased risk for elevated mental health symptom severity by analyzing 30-second free speech voice recordings for specific vocal patterns previously linked to mental health.

A comparison between MFVB scores and commonly used clinical mental health assessments revealed a statistically significant correlation, researchers noted.

“While the MFVB tool is not intended to diagnose or treat mental health conditions, these findings provide a robust initial foundation upon which to further explore its potential in personalized wellness tracking, which has so far not yet been able to extend measurement of physical health to mental wellbeing,” reported the researchers, led by Erik Larsen, PhD, with Boston-based Sonde Health, which developed the tool.

The study was published online in Frontiers in Psychiatry.
 

Eight Vocal Features

The potential value of vocal biomarkers for mental health assessment has gained increasing attention.

“Somebody that is depressed often sounds more monotone; they may have less inflection in their voice and speak slower with less energy, which can be recognized in voice recordings,” Dr. Larsen told this news organization.

“This is an area which has received quite a bit of research in the last few decades to find out what specific aspects of acoustics and rhythm of speech could point to conditions like depression,” Dr. Larsen said.

In the current study, the researchers set out to validate the ability of the MFVB platform to detect mental health symptoms.

With the tool, users record their thoughts and feelings as a 30-second voice journal. The tool analyzes the recordings for eight vocal features previously shown to be relevant to mental health. These include jitter, shimmer, pitch variability, energy variability, vowel space, phonation duration, speech rate, and pause duration.

The tool calculates a real-time MFVB score ranging from 0 to 100. A score of 80-100 is defined as “excellent” and 70-79 as “good,” while a score of 0-69 is categorized as “pay attention.” It was trained on more than 1 million voice samples to optimize performance across a diverse range of cultures, languages, and socioeconomic groups.

The current study included 104 outpatient psychiatric patients (73% women) with anxiety-related diagnoses, trauma, and stress-related disorders or depressive disorders. The cohort was mostly made up of White, non-Hispanic young adults. Patients with a history of substance abuse or who were taking psychiatric medications that may affect voice and speech were excluded.

During the 4-week study period, participants conducted 1336 app sessions with voice recordings, resulting in an average of 12.8 sessions per participant, or 3.2 per week.

MFVB scores were cross-referenced against the results of participants’ M3 Checklist, a clinically validated mental health assessment tool.

Over a period of 2 weeks, participants were twice as likely to report elevated mental health symptoms if their MFVB scores remained in the “pay attention” range vs in the “excellent” range, the researchers found.

The effect was more pronounced in those who used the app more frequently, with frequent users 8.5 times more likely to show elevated symptoms.

The correlation between MFVB scores and established mental health assessments was “not only statistically significant but also meaningful for participants,” researchers wrote. Subgroup analyses suggest the app works best for depression and stress- and trauma-related disorders.

The tool provides psychiatric outpatients with “immediate quantitative feedback on their mental health symptom severity,” the researchers noted.

In their paper, the investigators caution that the results highlight the “general ability” of MFVB score categories to differentiate mental health symptom severity levels but do not distinguish what type of symptoms these may be, such as depression, anxiety, or posttraumatic stress disorder.

In a statement, study investigator Lindsey Venesky, PhD, psychologist and clinical director at the Cognitive Behavior Institute in Pittsburgh, noted that the ability to collect mental health data from patients between clinic visits “could transform how we monitor symptoms and optimize treatment plans.”

“Voice-based health tracking technology can provide accurate insights into a client’s mental health status over time and can do so seamlessly and unobtrusively, with little added effort for clients,” Dr. Venesky said.

Need for Replication, Validation

Commenting on the findings, John Torous, MD, director of the division of digital psychiatry at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, noted that “over the last 20 years, there has been a lot of interest in voice biomarkers, yet somehow that research has never been translated into mainstream clinical care.”

Voice biomarkers are “relevant and have potential” in mental health, he noted. The findings in this study are “interesting, but they need to be thoroughly externally replicated and validated to show that these biomarkers are valid and reliable,” Dr. Torous added.

Changes in voice are part of the mental status exam, Dr. Torous said, “but it’s only one piece of information that we collect in a clinical assessment of many pieces of information.”

Dr. Torous also cautioned that “as a practicing psychiatrist, it can be tricky to be given new data if you don’t know how to interpret it or what it means. An important step would be education, outreach, and resources for physicians to learn about potential voice biomarkers.”

The authors received internal financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. The pilot phase of the study at St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton was partially supported through Mitacs Accelerate International, Canada. Dr. Larsen and three coauthors are employed by Sonde Health. Dr. Torous had no relevant conflicts of interest.

A version of this article appeared on Medscape.com.

TOPLINE:

Black patients with schizophrenia are less likely to receive a clozapine prescription compared with White patients, a new study shows. The findings held even after the researchers controlled for demographic variables, social determinants of health, and care access patterns.

METHODOLOGY:

• The study drew on structured electronic health record data on 3160 adult patients with schizophrenia.
• The mean age at first recorded diagnosis was 39.5 years; 70% of participants were male, 53% Black, and 91% resided in an urban setting.
• The researchers used the social vulnerability index (SVI) to quantify social determinants of health.
• Descriptive data analysis, logistic regression, and sensitivity analysis were used to identify differences between those who received a clozapine prescription and those who were prescribed antipsychotic medications other than clozapine.

TAKEAWAY:

• Overall, 401 patients received a clozapine prescription, 51% of whom were White and 40% were Black.
• Moreover, 19% of all White patients in the study received clozapine vs 10% of Black patients.
• After the researchers controlled for demographic variables, SVI scores, and care patterns, White patients were significantly more likely to receive a clozapine prescription than Black patients (adjusted odds ratio [aOR], 1.71; P < .001).
• Factors that had a statistically significant influence on the likelihood of receiving a clozapine prescription were minority status and language (OR, 2.97; P < .007), treatment duration (OR, 1.36; P < .001), and socioeconomic status (OR, 0.27; P = .001).

IN PRACTICE:

“The reasons for the underprescription of clozapine among Black patients with schizophrenia are multifactorial and may include concerns about benign ethnic neutropenia, prescriber bias, prescribers’ anticipation of patients’ nonadherence to the treatment, and the notion that the medication is less effective for Black patients,” the authors wrote.

SOURCE:

Xiaoming Zeng, MD, PhD, professor of psychiatry, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, was the senior and corresponding on the study. It was published online on March 19 in Psychiatric Services.

LIMITATIONS:

Due to the study’s cross-sectional and single-site design, the findings may not be generalizable to other geographic areas or institutions. The study lacked information on substance use disorders, common health conditions, or other patient-level data. A question remains whether all patients who received clozapine actually had treatment-resistant schizophrenia because other research has shown that there is an overdiagnosis of schizophrenia among Black patients.

DISCLOSURES:

The study was supported by a grant from the Foundation of Hope. Dr. Zeng reported no relevant financial relationships. The other authors’ disclosures are listed on the original paper.

A version of this article appeared on Medscape.com.

TOPLINE:

Black patients with schizophrenia are less likely to receive a clozapine prescription compared with White patients, a new study shows. The findings held even after the researchers controlled for demographic variables, social determinants of health, and care access patterns.

METHODOLOGY:

• The study drew on structured electronic health record data on 3160 adult patients with schizophrenia.
• The mean age at first recorded diagnosis was 39.5 years; 70% of participants were male, 53% Black, and 91% resided in an urban setting.
• The researchers used the social vulnerability index (SVI) to quantify social determinants of health.
• Descriptive data analysis, logistic regression, and sensitivity analysis were used to identify differences between those who received a clozapine prescription and those who were prescribed antipsychotic medications other than clozapine.

TAKEAWAY:

• Overall, 401 patients received a clozapine prescription, 51% of whom were White and 40% were Black.
• Moreover, 19% of all White patients in the study received clozapine vs 10% of Black patients.
• After the researchers controlled for demographic variables, SVI scores, and care patterns, White patients were significantly more likely to receive a clozapine prescription than Black patients (adjusted odds ratio [aOR], 1.71; P < .001).
• Factors that had a statistically significant influence on the likelihood of receiving a clozapine prescription were minority status and language (OR, 2.97; P < .007), treatment duration (OR, 1.36; P < .001), and socioeconomic status (OR, 0.27; P = .001).

IN PRACTICE:

“The reasons for the underprescription of clozapine among Black patients with schizophrenia are multifactorial and may include concerns about benign ethnic neutropenia, prescriber bias, prescribers’ anticipation of patients’ nonadherence to the treatment, and the notion that the medication is less effective for Black patients,” the authors wrote.

SOURCE:

Xiaoming Zeng, MD, PhD, professor of psychiatry, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, was the senior and corresponding on the study. It was published online on March 19 in Psychiatric Services.

LIMITATIONS:

Due to the study’s cross-sectional and single-site design, the findings may not be generalizable to other geographic areas or institutions. The study lacked information on substance use disorders, common health conditions, or other patient-level data. A question remains whether all patients who received clozapine actually had treatment-resistant schizophrenia because other research has shown that there is an overdiagnosis of schizophrenia among Black patients.

DISCLOSURES:

The study was supported by a grant from the Foundation of Hope. Dr. Zeng reported no relevant financial relationships. The other authors’ disclosures are listed on the original paper.

A version of this article appeared on Medscape.com.

TOPLINE:

Black patients with schizophrenia are less likely to receive a clozapine prescription compared with White patients, a new study shows. The findings held even after the researchers controlled for demographic variables, social determinants of health, and care access patterns.

METHODOLOGY:

• The study drew on structured electronic health record data on 3160 adult patients with schizophrenia.
• The mean age at first recorded diagnosis was 39.5 years; 70% of participants were male, 53% Black, and 91% resided in an urban setting.
• The researchers used the social vulnerability index (SVI) to quantify social determinants of health.
• Descriptive data analysis, logistic regression, and sensitivity analysis were used to identify differences between those who received a clozapine prescription and those who were prescribed antipsychotic medications other than clozapine.

TAKEAWAY:

• Overall, 401 patients received a clozapine prescription, 51% of whom were White and 40% were Black.
• Moreover, 19% of all White patients in the study received clozapine vs 10% of Black patients.
• After the researchers controlled for demographic variables, SVI scores, and care patterns, White patients were significantly more likely to receive a clozapine prescription than Black patients (adjusted odds ratio [aOR], 1.71; P < .001).
• Factors that had a statistically significant influence on the likelihood of receiving a clozapine prescription were minority status and language (OR, 2.97; P < .007), treatment duration (OR, 1.36; P < .001), and socioeconomic status (OR, 0.27; P = .001).

IN PRACTICE:

“The reasons for the underprescription of clozapine among Black patients with schizophrenia are multifactorial and may include concerns about benign ethnic neutropenia, prescriber bias, prescribers’ anticipation of patients’ nonadherence to the treatment, and the notion that the medication is less effective for Black patients,” the authors wrote.

SOURCE:

Xiaoming Zeng, MD, PhD, professor of psychiatry, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, was the senior and corresponding on the study. It was published online on March 19 in Psychiatric Services.

LIMITATIONS:

Due to the study’s cross-sectional and single-site design, the findings may not be generalizable to other geographic areas or institutions. The study lacked information on substance use disorders, common health conditions, or other patient-level data. A question remains whether all patients who received clozapine actually had treatment-resistant schizophrenia because other research has shown that there is an overdiagnosis of schizophrenia among Black patients.

DISCLOSURES:

The study was supported by a grant from the Foundation of Hope. Dr. Zeng reported no relevant financial relationships. The other authors’ disclosures are listed on the original paper.

A version of this article appeared on Medscape.com.

The first US clinical guidelines to diagnose and treat attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in adults are expected to be released this fall, providing patients, clinicians, insurers, and policymakers with a long overdue and much-needed standardized framework.

The initiative comes under the auspices of the American Professional Society of ADHD and Related Disorders (APSARD). David Goodman, MD, a member of the APSARD guidelines executive committee and assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland, noted that the US lags behind several other nations, including Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand who already have guidelines in place.

Dr. Goodman would not go into any detail as to why the country has been so slow off the mark but told this news organization that in part it has been due to a lack of specific funding. In addition, he said, “adult psychiatry abdicated responsibility for ADHD in adults.”

The American Psychiatric Association (APA) would not comment, although a spokesperson said two of its members are working with APSARD on the guidelines.

Estimates show that there are 10-11 million American adults (4.4%) with ADHD, making it the second most common psychiatric disorder in adults.

Surveys show that mental health professionals, including psychiatrists, report a lack of familiarity with ADHD in adults, said Margaret Sibley, PhD, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle and chair of the APSARD guidelines diagnostic and screening committee.

Many don’t consider an ADHD diagnosis in adults “because they were always trained to conceptualize it as something that’s relevant only in childhood,” Dr. Sibley told this new organization. However, research shows that people with ADHD do not outgrow the disorder.

“ADHD itself is still present and has unique problems associated with it in adults,” Dr. Sibley said.
 

Filling the Leadership Gap

Laurie Kulikosky, CEO of the advocacy group CHADD, said that the organization views the development of guidelines “as a huge step forward in the ability for more people to understand ADHD, particularly on the adult side.”

Oren Mason, MD, a primary care physician who specializes in ADHD at his Grand Rapids, Michigan-based practice, said “there hasn’t been a single specialty that has taken lead responsibility in adult ADHD,” which has contributed to the lag in guideline development.

In addition, Dr. Mason said, “trying to come up with adult guidelines even 5 or 10 years ago wouldn’t have yielded nearly as robust a set of guidelines because it’s taken awhile to have the evidence base to be able to make a few pronouncements really confidently.”

Not only has the evidence base grown but so has telehealth, especially during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. That led to concerns that ADHD was not rigorously evaluated and that stimulants were prescribed too easily, said Dr. Goodman.

Several telehealth providers came under federal scrutiny, with the DEA accusing Cerebral’s pharmacy of dispensing stimulants for nonmedical reasons. The agency said that some 72,000 prescriptions for controlled substances, mostly stimulants, were written between 2020 and 2022.

APSARD felt it was time to act, said Dr. Goodman.

“We could not allow entrepreneurs who felt there was a business opportunity here to, under the auspices of advocating for mental health, increase the distribution of potentially addictive medications in the community,” he said
 

Ensuring Psychiatrist Buy-In

Development of the APSARD guidelines is led by Thomas Spencer, MD, a retired associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, and Frances Rudnick Levin, MD, the Kennedy-Leavy Professor of Psychiatry at Columbia University, both of whom have decades of experience and clinical work in adults with ADHD.

Dr. Goodman is joined on the executive committee by Lenard Adler, MD (NYU Grossman School of Medicine), and Stephen Faraone, PhD (SUNY Upstate Medical University), along with 30 others who have expertise in psychiatry, psychology, primary care, and other health professions.

To participate in the development of the guidelines, experts had to agree to disengage from any potential conflicts and devote themselves — unpaid — to the process, said Dr. Goodman. The goal is to head off any charges of conflicts or biases, he said.

Three subcommittees — diagnosis and assessment, medical treatment, and nonmedical treatment — will review the literature, grade the evidence base, and use the Delphi consensus method to write the draft guidelines.

The draft will go out to the public and to medical specialties for comment, which will be considered for inclusion in the final publication, said Dr. Goodman.

The guidelines panel has been working closely with the APA and following the APA guideline development process in an effort to get buy-in from psychiatrists, he said.
 

Critical Educational Tool

“Doctors are often surprised to hear that there are no guidelines for adult ADHD in the US,” said Ann Childress, MD, APSARD president, when the group announced its effort in 2023. “Whether diagnosis and treatment are provided in office or online, the standard of care should be the same throughout the country,” she said.

Guidelines will “reduce mythology and error or at least when we run into mythology and error we can say no, there’s a giant consensus with hundreds of experts that disagree with that and so if you want to counter that you better bring some heavy machinery, you can’t just throw out an opinion and leave it unsupported,” said Dr. Mason.

Dr. Sibley said that, although there are no good data, anecdotally it appears many clinicians rely on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) when treating adults with ADHD.

The DSM “tells people what they should do but it doesn’t exactly tell them what’s the best way to do it,” she said, adding that often physicians follow what they learned from whoever they were trained by.

“Some people have been trained by people who are well versed in best practices and so they might be doing things that we would say have a research support to them, and other people might be doing things based on people who developed their own opinions about the best way to diagnose ADHD based on lived experience which may or may not be best practices,” Dr. Sibley said.

Her subcommittee aims to offer guidance on screening “that will be helpful in primary care, in terms of what are the most efficient ways to do it” and to help with accuracy, she said. Currently, there are likely some clinicians who are making too liberal a diagnosis and others who are making too conservative a diagnosis, she said.

With so many clinicians — especially in primary care — having a lack of experience, the guidelines could increase “the ability for more different kinds of providers to help,” said Dr. Kulikosky.

Guidelines should also provide a template for ongoing education, especially for clinicians who have never received any training in ADHD.

Dr. Goodman said it is increasingly likely that primary care physicians will be writing more prescriptions for ADHD medications than psychiatrists. “If that is the trajectory, the education of those providers seeing these patients is critical,” he said.
 

Offering Standards, Dispelling Myths

Guidelines can also help “shorten the learning curve,” said Dr. Mason, who said that he’s had to piece together evidence over the last few decades. Once published, the standards can be used in residency, for board exams, and continuing medical education, he said.

Not only do they offer a “kind of a shortcut to what we all know and agree on,” they also specify where the edges of knowledge are, he said.

Guidelines can also dissuade clinicians from practices that have no evidence to support them, such as “medication holidays,” said Dr. Mason. That has been employed to give children, especially, a break from side effects, but studies have shown that it actually increases side effects, he said.

Dr. Goodman and Dr. Sibley expect the guidelines to help with the challenge of diagnosis. Approximately 38% of adults with ADHD have a mood disorder and 48% have anxiety, said Dr. Goodman. Many others have coexisting posttraumatic stress disorder, substance use disorders, or medical illnesses that compound cognitive problems.

If an individual has several psychiatric conditions, “the question is how do you diagnostically prioritize which you treat first, second, and third, with the goal of treating one without making the others worse,” said Dr. Goodman.

“ADHD takes more detective work than other disorders,” said Dr. Sibley, adding that without an objective diagnostic and with overlaps with other comorbid disorders, “there are very complex issues that all of us wrestle with.”

While the guidelines will not provide algorithms, they will provide information that “will help guide them in the tougher diagnostic context,” she said.

Dr. Mason agreed. “It’s a complicated disorder to diagnose and treat. It’s hard for somebody to jump into it. [The guidelines] are going to give us — here’s what you really have to know, here’s what you have to do,” he said.

And it won’t just be clinicians who look to the guidelines. Calls to National Resource Center on ADHD — which CHADD runs for the federal government — from adults wanting to know more about their own condition “have increased exponentially” in the last few years, said Dr. Kulikosky. “We know adults are seeking out information, they are seeking out diagnosis and treatment,” she said.

Dr. Goodman and Dr. Sibley reported no relevant financial relationships. Dr. Mason reported that he consults for Otsuka and is a speaker for Iron Shore.

A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.

The first US clinical guidelines to diagnose and treat attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in adults are expected to be released this fall, providing patients, clinicians, insurers, and policymakers with a long overdue and much-needed standardized framework.

The initiative comes under the auspices of the American Professional Society of ADHD and Related Disorders (APSARD). David Goodman, MD, a member of the APSARD guidelines executive committee and assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland, noted that the US lags behind several other nations, including Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand who already have guidelines in place.

Dr. Goodman would not go into any detail as to why the country has been so slow off the mark but told this news organization that in part it has been due to a lack of specific funding. In addition, he said, “adult psychiatry abdicated responsibility for ADHD in adults.”

The American Psychiatric Association (APA) would not comment, although a spokesperson said two of its members are working with APSARD on the guidelines.

Estimates show that there are 10-11 million American adults (4.4%) with ADHD, making it the second most common psychiatric disorder in adults.

Surveys show that mental health professionals, including psychiatrists, report a lack of familiarity with ADHD in adults, said Margaret Sibley, PhD, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle and chair of the APSARD guidelines diagnostic and screening committee.

Many don’t consider an ADHD diagnosis in adults “because they were always trained to conceptualize it as something that’s relevant only in childhood,” Dr. Sibley told this new organization. However, research shows that people with ADHD do not outgrow the disorder.

“ADHD itself is still present and has unique problems associated with it in adults,” Dr. Sibley said.
 

Filling the Leadership Gap

Laurie Kulikosky, CEO of the advocacy group CHADD, said that the organization views the development of guidelines “as a huge step forward in the ability for more people to understand ADHD, particularly on the adult side.”

Oren Mason, MD, a primary care physician who specializes in ADHD at his Grand Rapids, Michigan-based practice, said “there hasn’t been a single specialty that has taken lead responsibility in adult ADHD,” which has contributed to the lag in guideline development.

In addition, Dr. Mason said, “trying to come up with adult guidelines even 5 or 10 years ago wouldn’t have yielded nearly as robust a set of guidelines because it’s taken awhile to have the evidence base to be able to make a few pronouncements really confidently.”

Not only has the evidence base grown but so has telehealth, especially during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. That led to concerns that ADHD was not rigorously evaluated and that stimulants were prescribed too easily, said Dr. Goodman.

Several telehealth providers came under federal scrutiny, with the DEA accusing Cerebral’s pharmacy of dispensing stimulants for nonmedical reasons. The agency said that some 72,000 prescriptions for controlled substances, mostly stimulants, were written between 2020 and 2022.

APSARD felt it was time to act, said Dr. Goodman.

“We could not allow entrepreneurs who felt there was a business opportunity here to, under the auspices of advocating for mental health, increase the distribution of potentially addictive medications in the community,” he said
 

Ensuring Psychiatrist Buy-In

Development of the APSARD guidelines is led by Thomas Spencer, MD, a retired associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, and Frances Rudnick Levin, MD, the Kennedy-Leavy Professor of Psychiatry at Columbia University, both of whom have decades of experience and clinical work in adults with ADHD.

Dr. Goodman is joined on the executive committee by Lenard Adler, MD (NYU Grossman School of Medicine), and Stephen Faraone, PhD (SUNY Upstate Medical University), along with 30 others who have expertise in psychiatry, psychology, primary care, and other health professions.

To participate in the development of the guidelines, experts had to agree to disengage from any potential conflicts and devote themselves — unpaid — to the process, said Dr. Goodman. The goal is to head off any charges of conflicts or biases, he said.

Three subcommittees — diagnosis and assessment, medical treatment, and nonmedical treatment — will review the literature, grade the evidence base, and use the Delphi consensus method to write the draft guidelines.

The draft will go out to the public and to medical specialties for comment, which will be considered for inclusion in the final publication, said Dr. Goodman.

The guidelines panel has been working closely with the APA and following the APA guideline development process in an effort to get buy-in from psychiatrists, he said.
 

Critical Educational Tool

“Doctors are often surprised to hear that there are no guidelines for adult ADHD in the US,” said Ann Childress, MD, APSARD president, when the group announced its effort in 2023. “Whether diagnosis and treatment are provided in office or online, the standard of care should be the same throughout the country,” she said.

Guidelines will “reduce mythology and error or at least when we run into mythology and error we can say no, there’s a giant consensus with hundreds of experts that disagree with that and so if you want to counter that you better bring some heavy machinery, you can’t just throw out an opinion and leave it unsupported,” said Dr. Mason.

Dr. Sibley said that, although there are no good data, anecdotally it appears many clinicians rely on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) when treating adults with ADHD.

The DSM “tells people what they should do but it doesn’t exactly tell them what’s the best way to do it,” she said, adding that often physicians follow what they learned from whoever they were trained by.

“Some people have been trained by people who are well versed in best practices and so they might be doing things that we would say have a research support to them, and other people might be doing things based on people who developed their own opinions about the best way to diagnose ADHD based on lived experience which may or may not be best practices,” Dr. Sibley said.

Her subcommittee aims to offer guidance on screening “that will be helpful in primary care, in terms of what are the most efficient ways to do it” and to help with accuracy, she said. Currently, there are likely some clinicians who are making too liberal a diagnosis and others who are making too conservative a diagnosis, she said.

With so many clinicians — especially in primary care — having a lack of experience, the guidelines could increase “the ability for more different kinds of providers to help,” said Dr. Kulikosky.

Guidelines should also provide a template for ongoing education, especially for clinicians who have never received any training in ADHD.

Dr. Goodman said it is increasingly likely that primary care physicians will be writing more prescriptions for ADHD medications than psychiatrists. “If that is the trajectory, the education of those providers seeing these patients is critical,” he said.
 

Offering Standards, Dispelling Myths

Guidelines can also help “shorten the learning curve,” said Dr. Mason, who said that he’s had to piece together evidence over the last few decades. Once published, the standards can be used in residency, for board exams, and continuing medical education, he said.

Not only do they offer a “kind of a shortcut to what we all know and agree on,” they also specify where the edges of knowledge are, he said.

Guidelines can also dissuade clinicians from practices that have no evidence to support them, such as “medication holidays,” said Dr. Mason. That has been employed to give children, especially, a break from side effects, but studies have shown that it actually increases side effects, he said.

Dr. Goodman and Dr. Sibley expect the guidelines to help with the challenge of diagnosis. Approximately 38% of adults with ADHD have a mood disorder and 48% have anxiety, said Dr. Goodman. Many others have coexisting posttraumatic stress disorder, substance use disorders, or medical illnesses that compound cognitive problems.

If an individual has several psychiatric conditions, “the question is how do you diagnostically prioritize which you treat first, second, and third, with the goal of treating one without making the others worse,” said Dr. Goodman.

“ADHD takes more detective work than other disorders,” said Dr. Sibley, adding that without an objective diagnostic and with overlaps with other comorbid disorders, “there are very complex issues that all of us wrestle with.”

While the guidelines will not provide algorithms, they will provide information that “will help guide them in the tougher diagnostic context,” she said.

Dr. Mason agreed. “It’s a complicated disorder to diagnose and treat. It’s hard for somebody to jump into it. [The guidelines] are going to give us — here’s what you really have to know, here’s what you have to do,” he said.

And it won’t just be clinicians who look to the guidelines. Calls to National Resource Center on ADHD — which CHADD runs for the federal government — from adults wanting to know more about their own condition “have increased exponentially” in the last few years, said Dr. Kulikosky. “We know adults are seeking out information, they are seeking out diagnosis and treatment,” she said.

Dr. Goodman and Dr. Sibley reported no relevant financial relationships. Dr. Mason reported that he consults for Otsuka and is a speaker for Iron Shore.

A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.

The first US clinical guidelines to diagnose and treat attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in adults are expected to be released this fall, providing patients, clinicians, insurers, and policymakers with a long overdue and much-needed standardized framework.

The initiative comes under the auspices of the American Professional Society of ADHD and Related Disorders (APSARD). David Goodman, MD, a member of the APSARD guidelines executive committee and assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland, noted that the US lags behind several other nations, including Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand who already have guidelines in place.

Dr. Goodman would not go into any detail as to why the country has been so slow off the mark but told this news organization that in part it has been due to a lack of specific funding. In addition, he said, “adult psychiatry abdicated responsibility for ADHD in adults.”

The American Psychiatric Association (APA) would not comment, although a spokesperson said two of its members are working with APSARD on the guidelines.

Estimates show that there are 10-11 million American adults (4.4%) with ADHD, making it the second most common psychiatric disorder in adults.

Surveys show that mental health professionals, including psychiatrists, report a lack of familiarity with ADHD in adults, said Margaret Sibley, PhD, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle and chair of the APSARD guidelines diagnostic and screening committee.

Many don’t consider an ADHD diagnosis in adults “because they were always trained to conceptualize it as something that’s relevant only in childhood,” Dr. Sibley told this new organization. However, research shows that people with ADHD do not outgrow the disorder.

“ADHD itself is still present and has unique problems associated with it in adults,” Dr. Sibley said.
 

Filling the Leadership Gap

Laurie Kulikosky, CEO of the advocacy group CHADD, said that the organization views the development of guidelines “as a huge step forward in the ability for more people to understand ADHD, particularly on the adult side.”

Oren Mason, MD, a primary care physician who specializes in ADHD at his Grand Rapids, Michigan-based practice, said “there hasn’t been a single specialty that has taken lead responsibility in adult ADHD,” which has contributed to the lag in guideline development.

In addition, Dr. Mason said, “trying to come up with adult guidelines even 5 or 10 years ago wouldn’t have yielded nearly as robust a set of guidelines because it’s taken awhile to have the evidence base to be able to make a few pronouncements really confidently.”

Not only has the evidence base grown but so has telehealth, especially during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. That led to concerns that ADHD was not rigorously evaluated and that stimulants were prescribed too easily, said Dr. Goodman.

Several telehealth providers came under federal scrutiny, with the DEA accusing Cerebral’s pharmacy of dispensing stimulants for nonmedical reasons. The agency said that some 72,000 prescriptions for controlled substances, mostly stimulants, were written between 2020 and 2022.

APSARD felt it was time to act, said Dr. Goodman.

“We could not allow entrepreneurs who felt there was a business opportunity here to, under the auspices of advocating for mental health, increase the distribution of potentially addictive medications in the community,” he said
 

Ensuring Psychiatrist Buy-In

Development of the APSARD guidelines is led by Thomas Spencer, MD, a retired associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, and Frances Rudnick Levin, MD, the Kennedy-Leavy Professor of Psychiatry at Columbia University, both of whom have decades of experience and clinical work in adults with ADHD.

Dr. Goodman is joined on the executive committee by Lenard Adler, MD (NYU Grossman School of Medicine), and Stephen Faraone, PhD (SUNY Upstate Medical University), along with 30 others who have expertise in psychiatry, psychology, primary care, and other health professions.

To participate in the development of the guidelines, experts had to agree to disengage from any potential conflicts and devote themselves — unpaid — to the process, said Dr. Goodman. The goal is to head off any charges of conflicts or biases, he said.

Three subcommittees — diagnosis and assessment, medical treatment, and nonmedical treatment — will review the literature, grade the evidence base, and use the Delphi consensus method to write the draft guidelines.

The draft will go out to the public and to medical specialties for comment, which will be considered for inclusion in the final publication, said Dr. Goodman.

The guidelines panel has been working closely with the APA and following the APA guideline development process in an effort to get buy-in from psychiatrists, he said.
 

Critical Educational Tool

“Doctors are often surprised to hear that there are no guidelines for adult ADHD in the US,” said Ann Childress, MD, APSARD president, when the group announced its effort in 2023. “Whether diagnosis and treatment are provided in office or online, the standard of care should be the same throughout the country,” she said.

Guidelines will “reduce mythology and error or at least when we run into mythology and error we can say no, there’s a giant consensus with hundreds of experts that disagree with that and so if you want to counter that you better bring some heavy machinery, you can’t just throw out an opinion and leave it unsupported,” said Dr. Mason.

Dr. Sibley said that, although there are no good data, anecdotally it appears many clinicians rely on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) when treating adults with ADHD.

The DSM “tells people what they should do but it doesn’t exactly tell them what’s the best way to do it,” she said, adding that often physicians follow what they learned from whoever they were trained by.

“Some people have been trained by people who are well versed in best practices and so they might be doing things that we would say have a research support to them, and other people might be doing things based on people who developed their own opinions about the best way to diagnose ADHD based on lived experience which may or may not be best practices,” Dr. Sibley said.

Her subcommittee aims to offer guidance on screening “that will be helpful in primary care, in terms of what are the most efficient ways to do it” and to help with accuracy, she said. Currently, there are likely some clinicians who are making too liberal a diagnosis and others who are making too conservative a diagnosis, she said.

With so many clinicians — especially in primary care — having a lack of experience, the guidelines could increase “the ability for more different kinds of providers to help,” said Dr. Kulikosky.

Guidelines should also provide a template for ongoing education, especially for clinicians who have never received any training in ADHD.

Dr. Goodman said it is increasingly likely that primary care physicians will be writing more prescriptions for ADHD medications than psychiatrists. “If that is the trajectory, the education of those providers seeing these patients is critical,” he said.
 

Offering Standards, Dispelling Myths

Guidelines can also help “shorten the learning curve,” said Dr. Mason, who said that he’s had to piece together evidence over the last few decades. Once published, the standards can be used in residency, for board exams, and continuing medical education, he said.

Not only do they offer a “kind of a shortcut to what we all know and agree on,” they also specify where the edges of knowledge are, he said.

Guidelines can also dissuade clinicians from practices that have no evidence to support them, such as “medication holidays,” said Dr. Mason. That has been employed to give children, especially, a break from side effects, but studies have shown that it actually increases side effects, he said.

Dr. Goodman and Dr. Sibley expect the guidelines to help with the challenge of diagnosis. Approximately 38% of adults with ADHD have a mood disorder and 48% have anxiety, said Dr. Goodman. Many others have coexisting posttraumatic stress disorder, substance use disorders, or medical illnesses that compound cognitive problems.

If an individual has several psychiatric conditions, “the question is how do you diagnostically prioritize which you treat first, second, and third, with the goal of treating one without making the others worse,” said Dr. Goodman.

“ADHD takes more detective work than other disorders,” said Dr. Sibley, adding that without an objective diagnostic and with overlaps with other comorbid disorders, “there are very complex issues that all of us wrestle with.”

While the guidelines will not provide algorithms, they will provide information that “will help guide them in the tougher diagnostic context,” she said.

Dr. Mason agreed. “It’s a complicated disorder to diagnose and treat. It’s hard for somebody to jump into it. [The guidelines] are going to give us — here’s what you really have to know, here’s what you have to do,” he said.

And it won’t just be clinicians who look to the guidelines. Calls to National Resource Center on ADHD — which CHADD runs for the federal government — from adults wanting to know more about their own condition “have increased exponentially” in the last few years, said Dr. Kulikosky. “We know adults are seeking out information, they are seeking out diagnosis and treatment,” she said.

Dr. Goodman and Dr. Sibley reported no relevant financial relationships. Dr. Mason reported that he consults for Otsuka and is a speaker for Iron Shore.

A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.