Beth – supporting service users to take an active role in their recovery 

Beth is an interactive website designed to enable mental health service users to take an active role in their recovery and wellbeing. The website is designed to support self-management and opportunities to improve communication between service users, carers and clinicians. It was developed by the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust. 

As well as helping people to self-manage conditions, Beth aims to improve clinical care by providing high-quality, real-time patient data. Researchers will also benefit from more accurate, anonymous data that can be used to improve the lives of millions of people.

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Medichec - minimising the risks from anticholinergic drugs

Medichec is a free web-based app designed to review patients’ medications and minimise the risks from anticholinergic drugs. These drugs are commonly prescribed for older people with chronic conditions including depression, anxiety, pain, allergies, incontinence, and sleep problems. Developed by researchers at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, the app helps clinicians and nurses to quickly and simply identify potentially harmful drugs so they can be discontinued or switched to safer alternatives.

The use of drugs with anticholinergic effects are known to increase risk of cognitive impairment, dementia, and early death in older people. They work by blocking acetylcholine, a nervous system neurotransmitter, and have a cumulative effect on cognition. With Medichec, over 2,000 drugs can be searched and categorised according to their safety.

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myHealthE - digital platform supporting children and young people with psychiatric conditions

The myHealthE (MHE) platform is a novel NHS digital health monitoring system developed to provide a simple and secure way for families accessing Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) to report clinical information. It aims to support children and young people with psychiatric conditions and their caregivers between clinic visits, and to improve the quality of data available for monitoring treatment effectiveness.

MHE uses a secure and automatic text and email system to collect clinically important information from caregivers about their child’s mood, behaviour and activities on a regular basis and present it back to families and clinicians graphically. The web-application provides instant feedback about treatment progress as an incentive for caregivers to respond to requests for updates about how their child is feeling. All data recorded by MHE is then fed back in real time to the user’s electronic health records. This enables clinicians to identify problems earlier and offer more tailored treatment. 

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RADAR-AD – using mobile technology to understand Alzheimer’s Disease

In the RADAR-AD project, researchers are investigating how mobile technologies – such as smart phones, wearables and home-based sensors – can be used to measure disability progression associated with Alzheimer’s disease (AD). They are using the open-source platform RADAR-base.  

These technologies allow us to sensitively measure cognitive and functional decline in people with Alzheimer’s Disease. However, it is currently unclear how we can use this potential to improve AD assessment and care – this is what the researchers are trying to find out.

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RADAR-CNS – caring for brain disorders with mobile technology

RADAR-CNS (Remote Assessment of Disease and Relapse – Central Nervous System) is a five-year international research project examining the potential of smartphone technology and consumer wearable devices such as FitBit to manage and treat brain disorders like multiple sclerosis (MS), epilepsy, and depression. 

RADAR-CNS is one of the largest remote disease-monitoring studies in Europe, and will recruit around 1,500 individuals with brain disorders. The hope is that with increased and better-quality data, doctors will be able to pre-empt and intervene to prevent relapses in patients before they occur, or at least improve their symptoms and quality of life.

Contact details for RADAR-CNS: