SINGAPORE, Nov. 29, 2023 /PRNewswire/ — Wonder Technologies PTE. LTD ("Wonder Tech" or "the Company"), a leading AI-driven mental health solutions company based in Singapore, has reached a breakthrough in its acoustics-based AI for depression screening. The AI model, which identifies depression through detecting nuanced vocal changes, has reached an industry-leading 83% in detection accuracy, surpassing the 80% threshold required for clinical depression detection. With this milestone, Wonder Tech has proven its potential to enable a scalable and adaptable diagnostic tool to help the one billion people affected by mental health disorders worldwide.
By analyzing a 60-second voice sample, Wonder Tech’s voice AI platform can detect and continuously monitor the risk of mental health conditions, categorized on varying levels of severity, to enable personalized treatment in a clinically reliable and scalable way.
This breakthrough was achieved in collaboration with Prof. John Wong at the National University Hospital (NUH) as well as Singapore’s top psychology and medical research institutes. Wonder Tech also received financial and clinical support from Singapore’s Ministry of Health to scale out the solution with leading mental health institutes.
Wonder Tech’s AI model is unique in that it’s pure acoustics-based rather than language-based. Since it does not rely on the content of speech and only requires a 60-second voice sample, the AI model can effortlessly adapt to virtually all languages while maintaining clinical accuracy. Additionally, the solution is hardware-independent, allowing implementation on consumer-grade smart devices, such as smartphones. These flexible features address the critical issues of adaptability and scalability, significantly improving accessibility to an accurate and immediate depression diagnostic tool.
Depression can cause psychomotor function changes that impair cognitive and vocal cord functions. The effects are often exhibited in pitch, intensity, aspiration, jitter and other characteristics in voice. Wonder Tech’s acoustics-based AI system can accurately assess for depression by detecting these subtle signs (objective biomarkers) using a large AI model with over 300 million parameters.
Wonder Tech’s solution is the first acoustics-based AI model for depression screening trained using multidimensional, clinically validated datasets following the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 5th Edition (DSM-V), which is the gold standard for diagnosis of mental health conditions.
Mental health disorders are prevalent worldwide. By 2030, global loss in productivity for major depressive disorder alone is forecasted to reach US$16 trillion. In the U.S., 21% of adults—nearly one in five—experienced a mental health condition in 2020. Similar trends have been observed in the Middle East, where two-thirds of respondents in a McKinsey Health Institute survey reported poor mental health or a mental health condition diagnosis. To broaden the applications of its solution for greater impact, Wonder Tech is working on adapting its AI model to screen for various disorders, including anxiety, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.
"Socioeconomic barriers continue to hinder access to treatment for the one billion people experiencing mental health disorders worldwide," said Wendy Wu, Founder and CEO of Wonder Tech. "In Singapore alone, anxiety and depression have been estimated to cost around S$16 billion (US$11.7 billion) in lost productivity annually, the equivalent to 2.9% of the nation’s GDP. Globally, depression and mental health disorders result in a staggering US$1 trillion in lost productivity each year, underscoring an urgent need to improve their care systems."
Depression has been estimated to have a 65% misdiagnosis rate. To resolve this issue, Wonder Tech has introduced its AI system as a B2B Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) to global healthcare facilities and enable hardware integration. The system is currently integrated with online healthcare platforms for early detection of mental health conditions. This ensures care providers can offer effective and timely personalized mental health treatment. It also couples with existing chronic disease prevention and management systems to improve patients’ mental health, especially for cardiovascular disease and cancer patients, to increase the cure rate and decrease claims for insurance providers. This system has received positive feedback from enterprise employee benefit programs, government healthcare programs for remote areas, postpartum depression prevention programs and senior care communities.
Supported by Singapore’s Ministry of Health & Temasek Foundation, Wonder Tech is currently collaborating with SingHealth in a broader piloting program in Singapore. The Company is preparing its solution for global English-speaking populations.
About Wonder Technology
Wonder Tech is a Voice Al platform for mental health. Our biomarker technology empowers full cycle of mental health solutions from screening, monitoring & personalized solutions for healthcare platforms, online hospitals, employee benefit programs, production safety, and insurance providers.
Learn more at www.wondertech.ai.
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