game works well because it creates a natural setting for a subject to spin off data; a person immersed in a video game is less likely even to think they are taking a test. Such a tool also won’t have trouble attracting users — 68 percent of American adults now play video games, according to the trade group the Entertainment Software Association, up 6 percent over the course of the pandemic.The Thymia games, downloadable free from its site, are minimalist.
In doing things this way, Thymia execs say alarms are sounded that would have remained silent in a traditional office-visit structure. “But psychiatric disorders like depression are very personalized,” he said. “Symptoms are extremely variable. … I’m not sure that I’ve seen the evidence that a computer can be programmed to understand all this the way a person can.”
which has invested an undisclosed sum in Thymia. “We answered yes to both. The idea of giving a clinician the ability to remotely and regularly check in and understand how someone’s condition is performing could be huge.”But some say they worry about the pitfalls in the move from a first-person to third-person — or, third-machine — approach to diagnosis.
It’s unclear whether Thymia execs ultimately intend for the tech to become a diagnostic tool all on its own. While Molimpakis and Goria take pains to emphasize it is meant as a supplement — “all we’re doing is extracting all this information that would come naturally to a clinician and providing it back to them,” Goria said — the founding
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