2020-2021
CHALLENGE
How might we sense and prevent mental disorders
through networks of humans and machines?
Mental health disorders, which are a leading cause for disease overload worldwide are- behavioral or psychological patterns causing significant distress or personal impairment. An estimated 11% of people worldwide live with diagnosed mental illness, which is almost 1 in every 10 people. Among our target population-Japanese, about 12% are calculated to live with clinically diagnosed mental disorders with the undiagnosed percent being much higher.
“ [..] the only thing
more exhausting than having a mental illness is
pretending that you don't
- Unknown
Mental disorders are conditions that affect your thinking, feeling, mood, and behavior. They may be random or chronic, either way they can affect your ability to relate to others and function each day.
Sensing
By applying sensing to mental health, the goal is to detect symptoms at the earliest to prevent users from going down the path of mental distress or to prevent relapse of an existing condition. The idea is to enable users to take actions early on to build their mental resilience.
Prevention
The aim is to reduce the incidence, occurrence and recurrence of mental disorders and the disabilities associated with them by adopting preventive measures. This can be bought by modifying the risk exposures, bringing in more awareness and education and most importantly by strengthening the coping mechanism of the individuals.
Network of Humans & Machines
This refers to the impact of collaborative intelligence of humans and network of machines in bringing about synergy and innovations.
Japan & It's Society
Historically, Japanese society has been very structured and hierarchical. Omoiyari (思いやり) or altruistic sensitivity is one of the core values of this society. Japanese are socially programmed to feel a sense of shame if they fail to exercise mental self-control. Suicides affiliated to stress and mental health have always been a problem in Japan. The economic crunch bought by Covid-19 pandemic saw a steep 16% rise in suicide rates in Japan. ‘Karoshi (過労死)- Work to death'- a potentially fatal syndrome resulting from long work hours has also seen rise in recent years. All this makes us think about the challenges of surviving in such a high expectation environment for people with mental illness
VISION
We want to develop a solution that enables our users to visualize the impact of daily life
on their mental well-being, and nudge the users with actions
they can take to enhance their resilience skills.