About the event
Mental health disorders such as depression and schizophrenia are notoriously difficult to manage. Many patients either do not have a treatment that really addresses their needs, or if they have an effective treatment, it comes with unpleasant side effects. One major challenge is that mental disorders are defined largely on the basis of their symptoms, even though the underlying cause of the symptoms may differ from one patient to another.
The online session explored the impacts of IMI projects with a strong focus on mental health disorders: RADAR-CNS (depression as well as multiple sclerosis and epilepsy); PRISM / PRISM 2 (schizophrenia and depression as well as Alzheimer’s disease) and AIMS-2-TRIALS (mental health issues co-occurring with autism).
Between them, these projects are identifying better ways to manage these conditions in different subgroups of patients, and shedding new light on the underlying causes of diseases – information that will help researchers to develop more personalised treatments.
Key to the projects’ successes are three elements. Firstly, they take a patient-centric approach, to ensure that the projects’ goals are aligned with what patients actually need. This is particularly important when one considers the stigma that is still associated with many mental health disorders. Secondly, they are amassing a wealth of data, which is vital for identifying (for example) patient subgroups that may respond better to certain treatments. Finally, they are turning to digital technologies such as wearable devices and apps to gather detailed, reliable information on how patients’ health changes as they go about their daily lives.
Meet the speakers
- Elisabetta Vaudano, Innovative Health Initiative | Moderator
- Vaibhav A Narayan, University of Oxford | Opening remarks
- Elizabeth Mary Gillott, Boehringer Ingelheim | PRISM & PRISM 2 projects
- Matthew Hotopf, King's College London | RADAR-CNS project
- Bethany Oakley, King's College London and Pierre Violland, Inclusio Autisme | AIMS-2-TRIALS project
Recording