List of digital therapeutics companies
This is an (unendorsed and un-vetted) list of companies in digital therapeutics. Digital therapeutics (DTx) deliver evidence-based therapeutic interventions to patients that are driven by high quality software programs to prevent, manage, or treat a broad spectrum of physical, mental, and behavioral conditions.[1] In the popular press digital therapeutics is sometimes defined as: a healthcare discipline that utilizes digital and Internet-based health technologies to make behavioral and lifestyle changes in patients.[2][3][4] Digital therapeutics is a relatively new discipline that uses digital implements like mobile devices, apps, sensors, the Internet of Things, and others to spur behavioral changes in patients.[3][5][6] The methodology operates as both a preventative technique for at-risk patients and a treatment for patients with existing conditions.[7][8][9] The companies in this list are organized by the health conditions or functions on which they focus.
Mobile Applications
Asthma App
- AsthmaMD AsthmaMD is the application for monitoring asthma, which combines peak expiratory flow (how fast a person can breathe out air) and symptom data chart. Its main significance is to make it convenient for patients to record their peak flow and data, and take appropriate measures as directed by the doctor. At the same time, researchers can track these data and use it to determine the cause and region of asthma flare formation.[10]
Autism & Developmental Delay Screening App
- The Cognoa for Childhood Development app provides a clinically validated assessment to screen for children's risk of developmental delay and autism. It can be used to expedite a diagnosis from clinicians. It also includes personalized activities parents can do with their child, based on their unique strengths and areas for improvement.
Cannabis Intervention App
- Stop-Cannabis Stop-Cannabis application is help people who have cannabis addiction, the app can treat their daily life because combines ecological momentary assessments (EMAs) and ecological momentary interventions (EMIs). This app is based on the self monitor, goal setting, action planning, and feedback report, which combines the behavior treatment to help users stop use cannabis.[11]
Kidney App
- Chronic Kidney Disease Chronic Kidney Disease application is used as an aid to the care of patients with Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD). The main goal is through four aspects: monitoring blood pressure, drug management, symptom assessment, tracking results. Sending this data to pharmacy and laboratory database, kidney care team analyze the patient's condition according to the data, and give patients appropriate medication. Patients will give their feedback about the medication. If they have an adverse reaction, the medical team will adjust the patient's dietary intake.[12]
Lifestyle Management App
- Wellthy Therapeutics is an Artificial Intelligence backed mobile app manage lifestyle to attain better clinical outcomes in disorders like diabetes, COPD and CKD.
Liver App
- NASH (Nonalcoholic steatohepatitis) is a type of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) which is characterized by an abnormal accumulation of fat in the liver, along with significant inflammation and fibrosis. Without treatment and lifestyle changes, NASH can progress into cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma (liver cancer). CureApp is working to provide a solution to the condition in which no definitive treatment exists. Their NASH app aims to treat patients through a CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy) by improving their diet and lifestyle. The app is currently in phase 2 clinical trial and predicted to be released in the US in 2022.
Mental Illness App
- MoodHacker is accessible through a website and mobile application that combines the skills and techniques of positive psychology and cognitive treatment for depression, which is a funding tool for self-management of depression based on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). The goal is to motivate employees to work, improve their mood, reduce depressive symptoms, and prevent escalation into clinical depression. As for CBT, it can reduce their pressure and stress. This is a positive psychological intervention, where through expressing their mood, the employees release negative energy, increase positive mood and happiness. MoodHacker application promotes self-management strategy.[13]
Nutrition App for Diabetes, AVC, IBS, Prevention
- WeCook is an application allowing people with strong health constraints to receive cooking recipes ideas organized in a e-meal planner and offers dedicated coaching with dieteticians. WeCook offers specific diet coaching for Diabete, IBS, Crohn, ACV, Obesity. Wecook claims more than 120 000 users [14]
- MonJournalFodmaps is a French mobile application allowing people to evaluate their FODMAP daily intakes. Validated by a clinical study led by Patients Association and APHP Louis Mourier.
Rehabilitation and Patient Care App
- Pt Pal facilitates clinician-directed patient rehabilitation and care by improving patient skill acquisition and utilization, assigning self-care tasks, coaching and monitoring patients’ adherence and progress. Clinicians send written/audiovisual materials to the app via web-based clinical portal. The app cues patients to use skills, do activities/tasks or take survey(s). Performance results from patients return from the app to the clinician portal. Using this data, clinicians view patients’ adherence to treatment regimens and view a graphical summary about patients’ condition. Clinician and patient discuss the data in next session. The platform allows patients and clinicians to exchange messages securely without text messaging.[15]
Smoking Cessation App
- Clickotine is a clinically-validated, comprehensive digital smoking cessation program delivered via mobile application. Developed by doctors, scientists and engineers, Clickotine leverages machine learning and AI technology to engage and personalize a patient's quit journey, maximizing the likelihood that they quit and stay quit for good. Individuals receive unique and targeted interventions as the program learns from and adapts to their specific needs. Clickotine combines seven key mechanisms of action (MOAs) that have been validated by clinical studies published in peer-reviewed medical journals. As a robust, fully digital smoking cessation program, Clickotine integrates seamlessly into a patient's organization’s ecosystem, which includes optional live coaching and free access to established quit aids such as Nicotine Replacement Therapy (NRT).[16]
- CureApp provides a smoking cessation app (CureApp SC) that was clinically proven to increase the cessation rate with the first randomized clinical trial in the world.[17] The application supports patients to get over the urge to smoke by 1. Sharing clinical knowledge of how to quit, 2. Providing behavioral change suggestions, 3. Providing motivational support through a chatbot, 4. Recording daily progress with breath CO level. Personalized support that users can get anytime/anywhere makes it easier to quit. CureApp also provides NASH (Nonalcoholic steatohepatitis) and hypertension treatment apps. The apps are currently provided in Japan and will be introduced to the US in 2020 for smoking cessation.
- DigiQuit is the first digital therapeutics app that has been clinically validated to help quit smoking in combination with pharmacotherapies for smoking cessation. Evidence-based DigiQuit increases Adherence to medication and has proven statistically significant 1-year adherence improvement in combination with standard care. DigiQuit uses data-driven AI and Behavioural Science to boost a behaviour change towards medication-adherence resulting in better smoking cessation results.[18]
Substance Use Disorder And Addiction Prevention & Treatment App
- Workit Health is an application for preventing and treating addictions, including opioid use disorder, substance use disorder, alcoholism, compulsive gambling, and compulsive eating. Users work through 6 modules with exercises tailored to their unique preferences and needs, and have contact with a variety of professionals (therapists, peer coaches, doctors) within the app.
- Ria Health offers evidence-based treatment for Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD) via telemedicine. Members have access to coaches and addiction specialists through a smartphone app, as well as prescription medications. The company's techniques include the Sinclair Method, which was developed as an alternative to abstinence-only models for curing alcohol addiction. The program makes use of a mobile breathalyzer, among other techniques, to track participants' progress.[19]
Suicide Prevention App
- Besafe Besafe is an application for preventing suicide of children or adolescents. As teenagers use smartphones and applications, Besafe app is an effective way to prevent teenagers who are thinking about suicide. The application prevents suicide by transmitting psychology education and offering crisis coping tools, to prevent deliberate self-harm.[20]
Weight-loss App
- MyFitnessPal is a mobile app for calculating the food intake and depleting of calories. Users can build a self-defining diet and exercise plan, and the app will track all the nutritive absorption according to this plan and it will give feedback report to the user. MyFitnessPal has the largest database of food and exercises, which can help to create a comprehensive weight loss plan. This application helps people lose weight and develop health habits.[21]
References
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- Hixon, Todd (9 December 2015). "Digital Therapeutics Have Huge Promise And They Are Real Today". Forbes. Retrieved 19 October 2016.
- Kvedar, Joseph (25 August 2016). "It's time to break free of the traditional paradigms of disease management". Med City News. Retrieved 19 October 2016.
- Cymerys, Ed; Duffy, Sean (May 2015). "Implementing USPSTF Recommendations on Behavioral Counseling for Cardiovascular Disease". Health Watch. Society of Actuaries (78).
- Hird, Nick; Ghosh, Samik; Kitano, Hiroaki (June 2016). "Digital health revolution: perfect storm or perfect opportunity for pharmaceutical R&D?". Drug Discovery Today. 21 (6): 900–911. doi:10.1016/j.drudis.2016.01.010. PMID 26821131.
- Capobianco, Enrico (10 November 2015). "On Digital Therapeutics". Frontiers in Digital Humanities. 2 (6). doi:10.3389/fdigh.2015.00006.
- Kvedar, Joseph C; Fogel, Alexander L; Elenko, Eric; Zohar, Daphne (10 March 2016). "Digital medicine's march on chronic disease". Nature Biotechnology. 34 (3): 239–246. doi:10.1038/nbt.3495. PMID 26963544.
- Sepah, Cameron S.; Jiang, Luohua; Peters, Anne L. (2015). "Long-Term Outcomes of a Web-Based Diabetes Prevention Program: 2-Year Results of a Single-Arm Longitudinal Study". Journal of Medical Internet Research. 17 (4): e92. doi:10.2196/jmir.4052. PMC 4409647. PMID 25863515.
- Dahlberg, Leif E; Grahn, Daniel; Dahlberg, Jakob E; Thorstensson, Carina A (3 June 2016). "A Web-Based Platform for Patients With Osteoarthritis of the Hip and Knee: A Pilot Study". JMIR Research Protocols. 5 (2): e115. doi:10.2196/resprot.5665. PMC 4912680. PMID 27261271.
- Kao, Cheng-Kai; Liebovitz, David M. (May 2017). "Consumer Mobile Health Apps: Current State, Barriers, and Future Directions". PM&R. 9: S106–S115. doi:10.1016/j.pmrj.2017.02.018. PMID 28527495.
- Monney, Grégoire; Penzenstadler, Louise; Dupraz, Olivia; Etter, Jean-François; Khazaal, Yasser (27 August 2015). "mHealth App for Cannabis Users: Satisfaction and Perceived Usefulness". Frontiers in Psychiatry. 6. doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2015.00120. PMC 4550753. PMID 26379561.
- Diamantidis, Clarissa J; Becker, Stefan (9 January 2014). "Health information technology (IT) to improve the care of patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD)". BMC Nephrology. 15 (1). doi:10.1186/1471-2369-15-7. PMC 3893503. PMID 24405907.
- Birney, Amelia J; Gunn, Rebecca; Russell, Jeremy K; Ary, Dennis V (26 January 2016). "MoodHacker Mobile Web App With Email for Adults to Self-Manage Mild-to-Moderate Depression: Randomized Controlled Trial". JMIR mHealth and uHealth. 4 (1): e8. doi:10.2196/mhealth.4231. PMC 4748138. PMID 26813737.
- "WeCook".
- Olajide, Kolawole (Sep 2018). "Pt Pal Pro (Health Tech Pal Corp) Home Exercise Program". APTA.
- Iacoviello, Brian M; Steinerman, Joshua R; Klein, David B; Silver, Theodore L; Berger, Adam G; Luo, Sean X; Schork, Nicholas J (25 April 2017). "Clickotine, A Personalized Smartphone App for Smoking Cessation: Initial Evaluation". JMIR mHealth and uHealth. 5 (4). doi:10.2196/mhealth.7226. PMC 5424127.
- Tateno, Hiroki; Masaki, Katsunori; Nomura, Akihiro; Hida, Eisuke; Fukunaga, Koichi (12 October 2019). "A randomized controlled trial of a novel smoking cessation smartphone app integrated with a mobile CO checker". Tobacco Induced Diseases. 17 (1). doi:10.18332/tid/111187.
- Hors-Fraile, Santiago; Schneider, Francine; Fernandez-Luque, Luis; Luna-Perejon, Francisco; Civit, Anton; Spachos, Dimitris; Bamidis, Panagiotis; de Vries, Hein (5 June 2018). "Tailoring motivational health messages for smoking cessation using an mHealth recommender system integrated with an electronic health record: a study protocol". BMC Public Health. 18 (1). doi:10.1186/s12889-018-5612-5.
- "Ria Health Launches Mobile App to Help Reduce Drinking (Interview) |". 2017-10-11.
- Gregory, Jonathan M.; Sukhera, Javeed; Taylor-Gates, Melissa (2017). "Integrating Smartphone Technology at the Time of Discharge from a Child and Adolescent Inpatient Psychiatry Unit". Journal of the Canadian Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. 26 (1): 45–50. PMC 5349282. PMID 28331503.
- Rebedew, David (2015). "MyFitnessPal". Family Practice Management. 22 (2): 31–31.