Together, the All-in-One AI Health Assistant, Improves Care for Aging Americans With Voice-Based Mental Health Detection Feature

The new Mental Vitals feature provides the easiest, quickest way to screen for symptoms of depression and anxiety using only voice on a smartphone

Together, the leading AI-based health assistant, unveiled its latest groundbreaking feature: Mental Vitals, an innovative mental health detection tool designed to screen for symptoms of depression and anxiety through voice analysis. Launched just six weeks ago, Together has already garnered more than 11,000 active users — 64% of whom are over the age of 55 — and is transforming the way aging Americans and caregivers manage and monitor their health.

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“As adults, we’re all patients and we’re all caregivers. We’re all in this…Together”

As a user speaks for 30 seconds, the app uses advanced AI developed at MIT’s renowned Lincoln Labs to analyze users’ prosody (melody), system (vocal tract movements), and source (vocal fold dynamics). With this data, Together can discern if a user displays potential signs of anxiety or depression, making early detection and intervention more accessible than ever.

The Mental Vitals feature joins Together’s existing suite of tools that enable users to measure vitals such as blood pressure merely by pointing their smartphone camera at their face. Furthermore, without the need for cumbersome typing or data entry, Together seamlessly manages daily medications, refills, doctors’ appointments, and more.

“Our mission with Together is to unify every aspect of health care, from vitals monitoring to mental health detection, into one intuitive platform,” said Dr. Renee Dua, founder and chief product officer of Together. “The potential impact is enormous, especially for the nearly 100 million Americans over 50 living with more than two chronic diseases and the 53 million caregivers who often feel overwhelmed.”

Depression and anxiety are serious and costly illnesses in the United States. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, 32.3% — more than 84 million — of U.S. adults reported having symptoms of depression or anxiety this year. According to a Mental Health America 2023 survey report, 54% of adults with a mental illness did not receive treatment. According to a study published in JAMA Psychiatry, people with obesity have a 55% higher risk of developing depression, while people with depression have a 58% higher risk of becoming obese. Recent articles published in the Journal of the American Medical Association indicate that routine screening for anxiety could save years of distress and reduce economic burden, and that major depressive disorder, if left untreated, “can interfere with daily functioning and can be associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular events, exacerbation of comorbid conditions, or increased mortality.” An article published in PharmacoEconomics reports the economic burden of adults with major depressive disorder was $326.2 billion in 2020 values.

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For caregivers, Together serves as an indispensable tool. Not only can they manage their health, but they can also oversee the well-being of their loved ones, all within the app’s private, secure, and user-friendly environment. “As adults, we’re all patients and we’re all caregivers. We’re all in this…Together,” Dua added, stressing the need to make caregiving sustainable for those with aging loved ones.

By combining mental health detection, vital measurement, and routine health management, Together can be uniquely effective as an AI-driven patient-centric care coordination and whole-person health platform. “Now the same app that reminds you to take your blood pressure medicine will measure your blood pressure, so you know if that medication is working. The same app that screens for symptoms of anxiety can also see if you have increased heart rate while giving you one-touch access to all your healthcare providers,” added Dua.

Together is completely free, private, secure and designed to be magically easy. With face-based selfies that measure vitals; automated prescription refill and medical appointment scheduling; recommended preventive health and more, Together helps adults follow their care plans to better health, while providing peace of mind to caregivers who are otherwise caught between the desire to help older loved ones and the frustration of not knowing quite what to do in the first place.

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