Are children more likely to share mental health concerns with a robot?

Are children more likely to share mental health concerns with a robot?

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New research shows that a “child-like robot” was able to detect mental health concerns in children with more accuracy than humans. Aitor Diago/Getty Images
  • The growing youth mental health crisis highlights a need for early detection and treatment of mental health disorders.
  • A new study by University of Cambridge researchers found that socially assistive robots (SARs) could serve as a potential diagnostic tool for mental health.
  • According to the researchers, the study is the first time robots have been used to asses children’s mental well-being.
  • The study shows that robots were more likely to identify cases of well-being anomalies than self-reports filled by children or reports made by their parents.
  • Still, researchers did not use robots to deliver mental health interventions, but rather, to detect and diagnose children’s mental health concerns.

Even before the pandemic, an estimated 4.4{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} of children (about 2.7 million) between the ages of three and 17 had been diagnosed with depression in the United States, according to the National Survey of Children’s Health. The same survey found about 9.4{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} (about 5.8 million) of children had been diagnosed with anxiety.

Experts believe that stress from COVID-19 has led to increased depression and anxiety in young people.

Mental health-related emergency room visits for children ages 5 to 11 increased by 24{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} in 2020 compared to the year prior, according to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Among children between the ages of 12 and 17, visits increased by 31{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809}.

At the same time, adequate mental health care and access are still lacking in the U.S.

Nearly 91 million Americans live in regions with shortages of mental health providers, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, which estimates a minimum of 1,846 psychiatrists and 5,931 other practitioners are needed to fill the gap.

Recently, a group of researchers from the University of Cambridge studied the effects of socially assistive robots (SARs), which could potentially serve as an assessment and diagnostic tool in areas where mental health professionals are in short supply.

Their work was presented this week at the 2022 IEEE International Conference on Robots and Human Interactive Communication in Naples, Italy.

For the study, researchers selected 28 children from Cambridgeshire, England, ages 8 to 13 years old. Among the participants, 21 were female and 7 were male with an average age of 9.5.

Children who had already been diagnosed with neurological or psychological disorders were excluded from the research.

First, the participants answered about their well-being on an online questionnaire. Additionally, parents or guardians answered a questionnaire about the well-being of their children.

Later, the young participants spent 45 minutes with a Nao robot, created by SoftBank Robotics. The robot then administered the Short Mood and Feelings Questionnaire, which measures symptoms of depression, and the Revised Child Anxiety and Depression Scale.

Additionally, the robot asked the children about happy and sad memories they experienced over the last week and administered a task where children were shown pictures and then asked questions about them.

The researchers found that questionnaires conducted by robots were more likely to identify cases of well-being anomalies than the children’s online self-reports or parent or guardian reports.

Some participants shared information with the robot that they did not share via self-report.

Study co-author Prof. Hatice Gunes, Ph.D., a professor of affective intelligence and robotics and head of the Affective Intelligence and Robotics Lab at the University of Cambridge, explained to Medical News Today that among participants, “the group that might have some well-being related concerns” were more likely to provide negative response ratings during the robot-led questionnaires.

“The interesting finding here is when they interact with the robot their responses become more negative,” Prof. Gunes noted.

Socially assistive robots have previously demonstrated potential as a tool to improve the accessibility of care, the researchers explain in their paper. For instance, a 2020 study illustrated that robots may be helpful in assessing risk factors for autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

“Robots have been used for various tasks — and they’ve been shown to be effective in certain things because they have this physical embodiment, unlike a mobile phone or a virtual character or even videos,” Prof. Gunes said.

And despite the potential dangers of allowing a child too much time with an electronic device, working one-on-one with a robot is different from screentime, Prof. Gunes noted.

“This is a physical interaction, right? So, it’s not virtual. It’s not a video — they’re physically interacting with a physical entity,” she said.

Prof. Gunes also pointed to a key aspect of the study: the “child-like robot” used for the research was less than 2 feet tall.

“Here we have a child-looking and child-sounding robot. “In such situations, children actually see the robot more as a peer. So, it’s not an adult that is trying to get some information out of them.”

– Prof. Hatice Gunes, Ph.D., professor of affective intelligence and robotics at the University of Cambridge

Diane Hodge, Ph.D., LCSW, director of the school of social work at Radford University in Virginia, said she’s used puppets and dolls to help make her pediatric clients feel more at ease while she worked as a clinical social worker earlier in her career.

Robots, she told MNT, are the 21st-century equivalent of those puppets.

“I’m all about technology that really enhances and helps people,” Hodge said. “More kids today are just so used to it that they expect it.”

Hodge also pointed out that in the study, the researchers did not use a robot to deliver mental health care interventions, but rather, to assess the well-being of children. “This is just to get people access,” she said.

Hodge also highlighted how the Nao robot was able to successfully identify more “well-being-related anomalies” in children compared to those revealed by humans. “[That] shows that if we had done nothing, right, they wouldn’t have caught that,” she said.

According to Prof. Gunes, her research interests evolved after having a baby in 2018. “I think I became more sensitive to child-related issues and their well-being,” she said.

In the future, Prof. Gunes said the researchers hope to study how children respond to interacting with a diagnostic robot over video chat.

Already, researchers are preparing to conduct a study similar to the one they presented at the conference only with a more equal ratio of male and female participants, according to Prof. Gunes.

“We want to see actually if the findings are consistent across genders,” she said.

Biden’s support is fading as concerns over the economy and Covid grow, CNBC survey finds

President Joe Biden’s approval ranking slipped deeply underwater in the CNBC All-The us Economic Study as Us citizens soured on his financial leadership, missing some self-confidence in his managing of the coronavirus, and grew increasingly worried about inflation and offer shortages.

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A bare the vast majority of Us residents nonetheless approve his dealing with of the virus, but the margin narrowed considerably. Fifty per cent now approve compared with 53{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} in July, and 45{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} disapprove, in contrast with just 38{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809}.

The president’s numbers are declining as considerations about the economy, inflation and supply shortages rise sharply.

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“Very last quarter, the financial quantities were flashing yellow for Biden, but now that’s intensified and the light is flashing pink, and it really is accompanied by multiple blaring sirens,” reported Micah Roberts, lover at Public Impression Techniques, the Republican pollster for the survey.

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U.S. President Joe Biden holds a assembly with company leaders and CEOs about the financial debt restrict at the White Home in Washington, U.S., October 6, 2021.

Kevin Lamarque | Reuters

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What we know about molnupiravir: Data and safety concerns

In the search for effective COVID-19 treatments, many drugs have failed to live up to their early promise. In a recent trial, seen as an important advance, the oral antiviral drug molnupiravir halved the risk of hospital admissions and deaths from COVID-19. Medical News Today explored the evidence to see whether this optimism is justified.

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The experimental drug molnupiravir has brought fresh hope in the fight against COVID-19. But what do we know about it so far? Image credit: Jordan Lye/Getty Images

A global trial, led by the pharmaceutical company Merck — known as MSD outside the United States and Canada — and Ridgeback Therapeutics, has found that the companies’ experimental antiviral drug molnupiravir reduces the risk of hospital admission or death from COVID-19 by approximately 50{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809}.

Although this was a small-scale trial, these positive results have led to countries rushing to sign up for supplies of the drug.

In the randomized, phase 3 trial, scientists gave molnupiravir or a placebo to 775 people. All the participants had tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 infections and experienced mild to moderate COVID-19 symptoms that had begun no more than 5 days earlier.

Stay informed with live updates on the current COVID-19 outbreak and visit our coronavirus hub for more advice on prevention and treatment.

Every participant had at least one risk factor for severe COVID-19 but had not been admitted to a hospital. Risk factors included obesity, an age of over 60 years, diabetes, and heart disease.

The scientists allocated each of the 775 participants randomly to one of two groups. One group received molnupiravir and the other a placebo. The participants took the capsules twice a day for 5 days.

Of the 385 patients taking molnupiravir, 28 were admitted to a hospital, compared with 53 of those in the placebo group. Eight of the placebo group participants died, while all those receiving the antiviral were alive at the end of the 29-day study period.

Recruitment into the study has now been halted because of these overwhelmingly positive results. The manufacturer, Merck, is applying for emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

The Singapore health ministry has signed a purchase agreement for molnupiravir, and the European Medicines Agency is considering a rolling review of the drug.

“With these compelling results, we are optimistic that molnupiravir can become an important medicine as part of the global effort to fight the pandemic.”

– Robert M. Davis, chief executive officer and president of Merck

Merck plans to produce 10 million courses of the treatment in 2021 and more in 2022.

The study results have been greeted with optimism. Prof. Tim Spector, a professor of genetic epidemiology at King’s College London, told MNT: “This is an exciting result from a randomized study of 775 patients, showing major effects in reducing severity and death from a simple pill given at the onset of infection.”

Molnupiravir belongs to a class of antivirals called mutagenic ribonucleosides. These change the viral genetic material and introduce errors to prevent replication and transcription of the viral genome.

Inside the host cell, molnupiravir is converted to molnupiravir triphosphate. When the virus tries to replicate, molnupiravir triphosphate is incorporated into the viral RNA instead of the nucleoside cytidine, causing a mutation.

The mutation stops the virus from replicating. This keeps numbers of the virus in the body low and should reduce the severity of the disease.

Other drugs that interfere with viral RNA have shown potential as COVID-19 treatments. Remdesivir, an intravenously administered drug that interferes with an enzyme essential for replicating viral RNA, showed early promise.

Although the FDA has granted approval to remdesivir, the World Health Organization (WHO) no longer recommends it as a COVID-19 treatment, due to insufficient evidence to support its use.

The advantage of molnupiravir is that, unlike all the other potential treatments so far, it is an oral tablet that a person can take outside a clinical setting. At a projected cost of around $700 per person for a 5-day course, it is also more affordable than other drugs. However, this cost is still likely to limit its use.

“Antiviral treatments that can be taken at home to keep people with COVID-19 out of the hospital are critically needed. We are very encouraged by the results from the interim analysis and hope molnupiravir, if authorized for use, can make a profound impact in controlling the pandemic.”

– Wendy Holman, chief executive officer of Ridgeback Biotherapeutics

Prof. Sir Peter Horby, a professor of emerging infectious diseases and global health at the University of Oxford, is largely optimistic: “A safe, affordable, and effective antiviral would be a huge advance in the fight against COVID.”

However, he retained a note of caution: “It is important to remember that the absolute risks were 14{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} reduced to 7{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809}, so quite a lot of people need to be treated to prevent one hospitalization or death. This means the drug needs to be very safe and affordable.”

This caution was echoed by Prof. William Schaffner, a professor of infectious diseases at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, who said: “In the studies in very high risk patients, it reduced the level of serious disease by only half. It’s not a magic pill.”

He added: “In research settings, you can ensure that people take the pill as directed. In practice, there is usually a lower success rate than in clinical trials.”

Dr. Peter English, a retired consultant in communicable disease and a past chair of the British Medical Association Public Health Medicine Committee, has also expressed doubts: “The problem for antivirals like Merck’s molnupiravir is that they would have to be used before people are (usually) deemed ill enough to need anything other than symptomatic self-care treatment.”

“Unless an antiviral medication could be made so cheap and so safe that it can be used ‘on spec’ by people who might have COVID-19, [it is] unlikely to be widely useful,” he adds.

Despite widespread optimism following the study results, some experts have raised concerns about the safety of a drug that works by causing mutations.

As molnupiravir causes viral RNA to mutate, there are concerns that it might cause mutations in host cells, as well. One study in animal cell cultures found mutations in cells treated with molnupiravir.

This has led to worries that the drug might cause cancers or birth abnormalities. The authors of the animal cell study recommend that this mutagenic potential be assessed in vivo, focusing on rapidly dividing cells. Additionally, they recommend monitoring to assess potential genotoxic side effects.

“It’s worth noting that people involved in the trial were instructed to abstain from heterosexual sex or use contraception. While this is routine practice with some other medicines, such as cancer chemotherapy, it suggests that the drug has the potential to cause birth defects should someone become pregnant.”

Dr. Simon Clarke, associate professor of cellular microbiology at the University of Reading

Prof. Schaffner was less concerned about the possible genetic implications: “The FDA would certainly not have permitted clinical trials in humans if they thought there were any reasonable danger. […] Animal studies showed no adverse effects.”

In this trial, molnupiravir was effective against all variants, including the Delta variant, which was shown in a recent study to have a 235{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} increased risk of intensive care unit admission, compared with the original variant.

These positive results applied to people who had received molnupiravir soon after the onset of mild to moderate symptoms. A previous trial showed no benefit in giving the drug to patients already in hospital with COVID-19.

As an early treatment, molnupiravir could, Prof. Schaffner agrees, “offer another opportunity to prevent serious disease.”

“Although [this trial] had relatively small numbers analysed (fewer than 400 per group), it had much better results than the study done in hospitalized patients. It approximately halved the rate of hospitalization and notably reduced the number of deaths. Preventing the virus from replicating at an early stage seems very beneficial.”

Prof. Stephen Evans, professor of pharmacoepidemiology at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine

So, is molnupiravir the drug we have been waiting for to bring COVID-19 under control? Perhaps, but the evidence is not yet conclusive.

Prof. Spector is among those keen to see more trial results. “We are told there were few side effects, but it would be good to know more details and see a full peer-reviewed publication,” he said. “But if this pans out, it will be a major game-changer for [COVID-19] treatment and possibly other viruses.”

For live updates on the latest developments regarding the novel coronavirus and COVID-19, click here.

October 13 News Updates: Air India Unions raise concerns about cash, leave, medical benefits, accommodation of employees & arrears

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Wrap Up: All you need to know

  • Wipro Q2 consolidated profit rises by 17{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} to Rs 2,930.6 cr, revenue up at Rs 19,667.4 cr
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  • Govt withdraws travel advisory that added COVID-19 related additional checks, restrictions on those arriving from the UK
  • Shardul Thakur replaces all-rounder Axar Patel in India’s main squad for T20 World Cup. Patel placed in list of stand-by players: BCCI
  • Kolkata Knight Riders beat Delhi Capitals by 3 wickets in second IPL qualifier, set up title clash with Chennai Super Kings
  • Cumulative COVID-19 vaccine doses administered in India has crossed 96 crore with more than 32 lakh jabs administered today
  • All colleges and universities in Maharashtra can conduct physical classes from October 20
  • Delhi records 31 fresh COVID-19 cases, zero death; positivity rate at 0.05 per cent: Health bulletin

Deity at Sri Kanyaka Parameswari Temple decorated with gold

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Power System Operation Corporation Limited (POSOCO) has reported that the total capacity of units under outage due to low coal stocks has reduced from 11 GW on 12th October to 6 GW on 13th October: Ministry of Power

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The maximum demand of Delhi was 4707 MW (peak) and 101.5 MU (Energy) on 12 Oct. As per the information received from Delhi DISCOMs, there was no outage on account of power shortage, as the required amount of power was supplied to them

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India’s COVID-19 vaccination will cross landmark of 100 crore vaccine doses in a few days; country will produce over 28 crore doses in October

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Gold gains Rs 63; silver jumps Rs 371

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Infosys Q2 net profit up 11.9 pc at Rs 5,421 crore; revenue rises 20.5 pc to Rs 29,602 crore: Co filing

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Wipro Q2 consolidated profit rises by 17{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} to Rs 2,930.6 cr, revenue up at Rs 19,667.4 cr

It’s good that Devendra Fadnavis still considers himself as CM. I congratulate him. After being CM for five years, Fadnavis still feels he is holding the post. I lacked this trait. I had served as CM (of Maharashtra) four times. But I don’t even remember

– NCP chief Sharad Pawar