A Predictive Tool for Personalizing Psychosis Treatment
Dr. Susana Ochoa from the Sant Joan de Déu Research Institute · Parc Sanitari Sant Joan de Déu leads a European project to offer personalized metacognitive training for people with psychosis by developing a learning algorithm.
It is estimated that psychosis affects approximately 1.2% of the world population. One of the most common psychotic disorders is schizophrenia, a severe mental disorder affecting 24 million people worldwide. However, although therapeutic interventions for treating these disorders have proven effective, only one-third of affected individuals receive specialized treatment. It is in this context that the European project Personalised Medicine approach to psychological treatment for Psychosis (Permepsy) is framed.
The goal is to transform the psychological treatment of psychosis by incorporating innovative technologies and personalizing therapeutic interventions. To achieve this, the Soft Computing Research Group (SOCO) and the Knowledge Engineering Research Group (GREC) of the Intelligent Data Science and Artificial Intelligence Research Center (IDEAI) at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya - BarcelonaTech (UPC) are working on developing a personalized medicine platform.
Using predictive models created with machine learning techniques, the new tool will allow for predicting the most appropriate personalized treatment for each patient. The platform integrates retrospective data from 700 psychosis patients treated with metacognitive training psychological therapy. Sociodemographic, clinical, cognitive, and metacognitive indicators are collected, as well as biomarkers associated with treatment response in schizophrenia.
The prototype platform will be tested in a pilot clinical trial for a year with more than 250 patients starting next September. The clinical partners of the project, who have collaborated over the years to develop metacognitive training strategies for patients with psychosis at various stages of the disorder, will conduct this trial. The ultimate goal is to provide the global medical community with a free tool to improve the treatment of psychosis.
Source of Information
Una herramienta predictiva para personalizar el tratamiento de la psicosis. Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya.
This project promises to offer new hope to those suffering from psychosis and their families while opening new doors to personalized medicine in the treatment of mental disorders.