New Smartphone App detects mood swings via voice analysis

A new smartphone app monitors subtle qualities of a person's voice during everyday phone conversations to detect early signs of mood changes in people with bipolar disorder, scientists, including one of Indian-origin, say.

The researchers hope the app will eventually give people with bipolar disorder and their health care teams an early warning of the changing moods that give the condition its name.

The app runs in the background on an ordinary smartphone, and automatically monitors the patients' voice patterns during any calls made as well as during weekly conversations with a member of the patient's care team.

The computer programme analyses many characteristics of the sounds - and silences - of each conversation.

Only the patient's side of everyday phone calls is recorded - and the recordings themselves are encrypted and kept off-limits to the research team.

They can see only the results of computer analysis of the recordings, which are stored in secure servers that comply with patient privacy laws. 

Because other mental health conditions also cause changes in a person's voice, the same technology framework developed for bipolar disorder could prove useful in everything from schizophrenia and post-traumatic stress disorder to Parkinson's disease, the researchers said.