Dr. Jayesh Kamath sees psychiatry differently. By nature of the field, psychiatry has not been able to take advantage of the objective tools and tests available to other medical fields.<\/p>\n
Kamath, UConn Health professor of psychiatry and immunology, however, sees the potential for mobile health (mHealth) technologies to support psychiatrists, as well as the critical connections between mental and physical health for cancer patients.<\/p>\n
Kamath holds an MD from St. Petersburg Pavlov State Medical University and a Ph.D. in immunology from the University of Arizona. Kamath has always been interested in research and the interface between medicine and psychiatry.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve always been interested in talking to people, listening to people, hearing their intimate stories and histories, and helping them cope with what\u2019s going on in their lives,\u201d Kamath says.<\/p>\n
During his residency at the UConn School of Medicine, Kamath noticed the different approaches to psychiatry versus other medical fields.<\/p>\n
One of the major challenges in psychiatry is the inability to collect patient data objectively. Mental health diagnoses largely rely on highly subjective interviews and questionnaires.<\/p>\n
Psychiatrists do have the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), but it is far from a perfect tool. The criteria are based on subjective interviews and can have trouble accounting for patients who present the same disorder differently.<\/p>\n
\u201cI really partially struggled with that,\u201d Kamath says.<\/p>\n
Mental health disorders are characterized both by internal feelings and external behaviors; Kamath is proving that the latter may be studied in the same way many other health problems are.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know behavior happens and changes with depression,\u201d Kamath says. \u201cWe can capture these behaviors objectively. In the past, we didn\u2019t have this technology to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Challenging Dogma <\/strong><\/p>\n Kamath has worked with colleagues in the School of Engineering to develop an app, DepWatch, which collects data about behaviors associated with depression. Kamath is collaborating with Professor of Computer Science and Mathematics Alexander Russell; Professor of Computer Science and Engineering Bing Wang; and Frederick H. Leonhardt Professor of Computer Science Jinbo Bi.<\/p>\n This collaboration has been rewarding and challenging, Kamath says.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s been a fascinating journey because both sides have had to learn a lot,\u201d Kamath says. \u201cBut that\u2019s where the innovation happens.\u201d<\/p>\n DepWatch tracks measures such as how much a person is moving around, talking, texting, and engaging with social media as well as when they are active on their phone. If a person is consistently active late at night, this could be a cue that they aren\u2019t sleeping regularly, which is a symptom of depression for some people.<\/p>\n “Both sides have had to learn a lot. But that\u2019s where the innovation happens.\u201d — Jayesh Kamath<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n This approach takes advantage of passive data collection. Participants use their phone normally while the app works in the background.<\/p>\n \u201cThe phone is a perfect sensing mechanism because we carry it around all the time,\u201d Kamath says. \u201cIt collects a tremendous amount of data.\u201d<\/p>\n The group\u2019s previous study funded by the National Science Foundation collected smartphone data from 182 college students to prove their app can predict behavioral and cognitive depression symptoms.<\/p>\n The team is now conducting a four-year study funded by the National Institute of Mental Health to apply DepWatch to real clinical practices. Three clinical investigators at UConn Health will use DepWatch to determine if antidepressant treatment is working for their patients.<\/p>\n Psychiatrists commonly tell patients they should begin experiencing improvements four weeks after beginning new antidepressant treatment. However, not every antidepressant is effective for every patient. DepWatch can help clinicians determine early on if a medication is working.<\/p>\n Within the first two to three weeks on antidepressants, people\u2019s behaviors may begin to change. These early behavioral changes can be a reliable signifier of if the treatment will continue to be effective.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat we proposed is that we can capture this early improvement with the tool we\u2019ve already developed,\u201d Kamath says.<\/p>\n A major advantage of this technology is that it is more accurate than self-reporting. DepWatch provides clinicians with objective data and removes the burden from the patient to recall their behavior over several weeks.<\/p>\n The goal of this preliminary study is to determine if using DepWatch improves patient retention in antidepressant treatment, as many people exit treatment within the first few weeks if they fail to improve.<\/p>\n \u201cWe would be challenging the dogma of psychiatry,\u201d Kamath says.<\/p>\n Body and Mind \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n In 2005 Kamath founded the Cancer Fatigue Interdisciplinary Clinic<\/a> in the UConn Health Carole and Ray Neag Comprehensive Cancer Center. At the time, it was one of the first psycho-oncology clinics in Connecticut that was located within the cancer clinic.<\/p>\n Many cancer patients experience depression and anxiety. Even when they are referred to mental health providers, many do not go due to the stigma surrounding receiving help for mental health disorders. Some patients especially do not want to go to mental health clinics. However, many feel comfortable seeing mental health providers within the cancer clinics, a service \u00a0Kamath\u2019s clinic provides.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a taboo still,\u201d Kamath says.<\/p>\n Cancer patients also often experience fatigue, which is associated with depression and other mental health disorders, during and after treatment.<\/p>\n For cancer patients, fatigue can persist for years after treatment and seriously impede their quality of life.<\/p>\n \u201cThat level of fatigue can really affect you in every possible way,\u201d Kamath says.<\/p>\n In another area of his work, Kamath is investigating the links between physical and mental responses to cancer treatment.<\/p>\n During cancer treatment, patients\u2019 levels of inflammation increase as their body works to destroy the cancer. Inflammation and fatigue go hand-in-hand, and when patients have high levels of inflammation early in treatment, it tends to persist after treatment, as does fatigue.<\/p>\n \u201cFor a certain subpopulation of patients with fatigue, inflammation persists long after treatment,\u201d Kamath says. \u201cIt\u2019s not supposed to.\u201d<\/p>\n Bringing Tech to Treatment <\/strong><\/p>\n Many other health care fields are already taking advantage of mHealth technologies to advance their care practices. Kamath says technology like DepWatch is helping bring psychiatry up to speed.<\/p>\n \u201cThis technology has given us significant opportunities to help with everything we do in psychiatry and we really need to grab that opportunity,\u201d Kamath says. \u201cWe don\u2019t want to be left behind.\u201d<\/p>\n mHealth technologies can enhance the care mental health professionals can provide by combining information about how a patient is feeling \u2013which can only be assessed through interviews \u2013 with objective behavioral data.<\/p>\n \u201cObjectivity is important, which is what the technology gives us,\u201d Kamath says. \u201cBut it does not replace our interviews, and it doesn\u2019t replace our therapeutic connection with patients.\u201d<\/p>\n Kamath says he and his team are interested in potentially commercializing their app once they have the results from this study.<\/p>\n DepWatch is a promising tool that could provide psychiatrists with easily calculable behavioral data to supplement their treatment.<\/p>\n \u201cWould this product mean anything in the field?\u201d Kamath says. \u201cYes, absolutely. It would mean a lot of things.\u201d<\/p>\n Kamath hopes to expand the applications of this app to larger studies as well as other populations such as cancer patients or people with PTSD.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have this tool,\u201d Kamath says. We just have to see where else we can apply it.\u201d<\/p>\n Follow UConn Research on<\/em>\u00a0Twitter<\/em><\/a>\u00a0&<\/em>\u00a0LinkedIn.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Jayesh Kamath is bringing psychiatry into the mobile tech era by using mHealth technologies to support patients with depression<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":147,"featured_media":171111,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2231,2291,2076,1868,2235,179,2306],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[2277],"class_list":["post-170522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health-well-being","category-psychiatry","category-research","category-meds","category-today-homepage","category-uconn-health","category-uconn-voices","series-meet-the-researcher"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-06 09:45:24","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/147"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=170522"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170522\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":171321,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170522\/revisions\/171321"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/171111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=170522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=170522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=170522"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=170522"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=170522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n