NLP for the diagnosis of the mental health illness

Mental health problems like depression and anxiety are difficult to identify in their early stages. According to Stanford Natural Language Processing Research Group,  in the U.S. alone, 43.6 million adults (18.1%)experience mental illness each year. The longer the individual is without treatment, worse is the impact on the health of the individual.

NLP for the diagnosis of the mental health illness

People use language to communicate facts. However, our emotions and mental health influences the method of our communication, the choice of words coherence in thoughts. This can be understood by how a person reacts and responds to in social media and other places. Natural Language Processing and machine learning can help observe individuals under non-clinical environments and help identify the potential health issues.

NLP for the treatment of Mental Health Illness

Apart from the diagnosis, NLP can also be used to assess the best counselling methods and treatments by analyzing the conversations in the counselling sessions. This will help classify not only the mental health illness but also the best treatment possible.

Once, the models are trained enough, the platform can be used to diagnose and treat mental health problems at an early stage and help reduce healthcare costs and more importantly save lives of the people.

References:

Natural language processing in mental health applications using non-clinical texts

How to help someone feel better: NLP for mental health

By: Vetrivel Natarajan