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Vest Assists Diagnosis of Mental Disorders

Incorporating both a uniquely designed vest and the presence of cameras to observe patients with mental illness, it appears that a UCSD psychiatry professor’s new diagnostic method has taken cues from the fashion industry.

William Perry and his colleagues at the UCSD School of Medicine have created a vest, known as Lifeshirt, that incorporates sensors to detect the vital signs and movement patterns of patients. The vest, developed by Ventura, Calif. company VivoMetrics, will hopefully allow researchers to distinguish between subjects with highly advanced forms of bipolar affective disorder and schizophrenia.

“”Our technology is greater than the vest,”” Perry said in an e-mail. “”It includes innovative technology using both a camera and the vest.””

In the study, a Lifeshirt-wearing patient is asked to wait for the researcher in a chairless room – forcing him or her to stand and move about the space. A camera in the ceiling monitors the patient’s movements, which the vest tracks in order to measure rates of acceleration. The vest also actively gauges respiration, heart rate and other physiological symptoms.

Through the patented approach, researchers have preliminarily concluded that distinct differences exist between the movement patterns of patients with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. Before Lifeshirt, researchers found it difficult to distinguish between advanced stages of the two diseases, which both exhibit very similar symptoms. However, the study suggests that the pattern of exploration in a new environment may be the first step in distinguishing between the two conditions.

Some of the differences in movement patterns are too subtle to identify with the eye, which makes the vest’s technology appealing to researchers.

“”We are building up a kind of physiological grammar, based on the sequence of different actions,”” Perry said in a press release. “”That’s very useful because it is completely separate from the face-to-face impressions that can make observational study difficult.””

Lifeshirt patients are allowed to move freely and interact with their environment, giving researchers the opportunity to closely monitor movement without appearing to observe them too closely.

The study’s results have shown that bipolar patients are much more active in exploring a new environment than schizophrenic patients. In addition to comparing these two conditions, researchers are also hoping to understand how bipolar patients deal with other environmental factors. The shirt can measure stress levels through respiration, heart rate and changes in movement.

Currently, many researchers believe that patients with bipolar disorder find it difficult to deal with excessive or insignificant data, often reacting with what is known as a manic episode. Perry said he will test a hypothesis to determine if this behavior is caused by damage to the behavior-regulating part of the brain.

Perry and his colleagues presented the early results of the study at the 62nd Annual Science Conference and Meeting of the Society of Biological Psychiatry, held at Horton Plaza in San Diego from May 17 to May 19.

The study will continue for five years and is funded by the National Institutes of Mental Health.

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