Welcome to the Reality Check podcast. Psychosis is Real, so is Recovery.

On this episode, Ashley Weiss and Serena Chaudhry speak with Peter Westlake, the Founder of Mindnumbers

Peter is meshing together his professional background in clinical diagnostics and developing tests, with his family member's experience of psychosis, to create Mindnumbers. Mindnumbers is like an early warning system that can track multiple metrics, such as sleep, routines, tone of voice etc, to alert patients to any significant changes.

Join us for this fascinating dive into how technology could help people recognise early warning signs.

Subscribe for more episodes of Reality Check, where we uncover the truth behind mental health, one story at a time.

For more information about Clear Answers to Louisiana Mental Health (CALM) and their Early Intervention Psychosis Program (EPIC NOLA), visit the website: www.calmnola.org

To find out more about Peter and Mindnumbers, visit - www.mindnumbers.net

Podcast produced by Red Rock Branding – www.redrockbranding.com

Good afternoon, everybody. I'm Serena Chaudry. And we're back again together for the first time in a couple episodes.

And it's Ashley Weiss

Yes, my apologies. I'm happy.

to

have you back. And we're here this afternoon with Peter Westlake, the CEO and founder of Mindnumbers. Hi Peter.

Hi hi fantastic, thank you, I'm honoured.

We're honored. So why don't you start today by telling us a little bit about who you are.

Yeah, so I'm based in

San

Diego. You can tell I'm not from San Diego originally.

originally I'm a Brit

I've been in the US about 15 years. And I've spent that time in diagnostics actually, clinical diagnostics.

What exactly though does that mean?

So developing diagnostic tests for, you know, the COVID test is obvious thing and we did that, but way before COVID developing test complex conditions and looking at 15 different things simultaneously and trying to figure out using multiple different observation whether somebody either has a condition or they're doing with that condition. So, and those results were served up.

is the most.

actually in gastroenterology.

multiple different observations, whether it's a or how

to doctors with kind of copy to the patient, but served up to doctors to help them decide how to treat. So that's background. And then about two years ago, I started working in the psychiatry space because all that measurement stuff is honestly psychiatry. And we've got the ability to do a whole lot more than we could three, four years ago.

made how to

across and said,

All right, so you're here today in the psychiatry space to talk about mind numbers. What is mind numbers?

So MindNumbers is an app, we deliver it as an app, but what it's really doing is measuring ⁓ symptoms, behaviors, and we're starting by working with people who living with bipolar disorder. And so they have a variety of different symptoms and we're really helping them measure the changes that they're seeing so that they've got a kind of automatic

and wellness.

change.

journal of what's going on. And that covers things like fundamental stuff like sleep and activity and routine, you know, how, how stable things are and then mood through voice.

recordings through speed.

Yes, it's fascinating. And we've been on this journey with you thinking about this and developing or getting to this point and thinking about it collectively as to how it relates to care of our patients. How did I, I'm curious, last we saw you was in Berlin at the early intervention meeting. I'm curious about your journey afterwards and how mindnumbers was received in those and the other countries and those other places.

Yeah. So, from Berlin, went first to Poland actually, which is where I've been working with a team of app developers in Poland for the last two years bringing mindnumbers to life and that's a group that's been developing medical apps, which is why go to Poland to get this done where there's this specialist company that's been developing medical apps in US.

in Poland for the years to bring my life.

actually for the

and they've been doing that for about 10 years now. So that was really interesting because they were, they're not experts in this area, but they are experts in

kind

of what's new from Apple and what's new from Google.

and

where are things going, what are other people doing, all of that sort of stuff, as well as the security you need to put in place if you're going to start recording someone's voice and analyzing it and so on. So they were super interested to hear about the real life.

privacy things that you

honestly they

your life

applications and the value that Mindnumbers can bring. And I'm sure.

we'll

get to that. So that was Poland and then Poland I went on to Tokyo, to Japan, to International Society of Bipolar Disorders meeting. So that's another annual international meeting, but really very specialized on bipolar disorder. And that was super cool because we had all the science geeks there. had absolutely had all the clinicians, but also there were a lot of people, individuals living with bipolar disorder, brought a lot of

from.

experience

of the reality.

of managing the condition. And it was great to see them having a voice first and foremost, but now clearly having an influence on the agenda. So they were certainly curious about Mindnumbers because look, we've copied lots of the themes that other people have been talking about and implemented them. So we're not trying to invent the new ideas or anything. We're trying to take the ideas that we've heard from

and

and implemented.

individuals kind of living with bipolar and that we've heard from clinicians and just make them possible to manage on your phone rather than through clipboards and you know, methods that are harder.

heard from clinicians.

to manage your phone.

I think it's super cool that you took this app that you've developed around the world and got to interface with people who are working in different industries around this app that we're getting to use with people on patients now in the U S. But I want to back up a moment and ask why Mindnumbers? Why did you develop this? Why did you move across from gastro to psych?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then look, that's a kind of personal story, it's really a family story had kind of a member of my family through something that I'm sure listeners are going to recognize when I start to talk about it because, know, as a non-expert, this was just strangeness, okay, this was just things starting to be strange for my family member.

story really family

who went through a short listening wreck.

This was strangeness.

strange and

then for us around them kind of not really understanding what was going on.

going some

instincts that something wasn't right, not having concrete to say, I need to do this or I need to do that. so we went together as a family on this kind of exploration through a couple of episodes turned into psychosis, hospitalizations, recovery, and then back into an episode again. and then after a couple of cycles got a diagnosis of.

right but not having anything con

We went to be as a family.

operation in its

And then after a couple of cycles.

bipolar one, which you know, it's nothing that anybody

actually has or wants but is super helpful.

once you have the right diagnosis. And that was great because we then started to go down the route of effective treatments and preventative things that you can do once you start to understand the condition a bit better. then, you know, I was looking at this from a family point of view, but I was also looking at this from somebody who spent their days studying how to measure how to analyze, how to serve up useful information in the decision

process.

And in psychiatry, was seeing a bit of a lack of that, you know, was all professional judgment and the professionals didn't have the measurement tools. so I thought, well, I actually can do something about that because we sleep disturbance is a leading indicator

sleep disturbance is a leading indicator of trouble ahead on its own. doesn't tell you everything, absolutely, but it's a leading indicator. We know that sort of activity patterns change when people's

behavior

behaviour is changing and their routines change and so

on,

but also even as an amateur and then as I got into the detail, started to understand more, the language changes that you see and the communication changes that people go through, we can analyze those now in a way we weren't able to with the tools three or four years ago. yeah, I I put together my professional experience if you like personal need because after two or three episodes,

Language changes. Communication changes.

that we had.

you like and then my partner.

We as a family didn't want another one, you know, so this is really about avoiding the nest one by recognising it early enough to get help that's needed early enough.

a family, didn't want to. This is really about avoiding the next one.

Yeah, how much I'm just thinking about, first of all, the avoiding of another episode, you know, and what could have been done differently, not to say that anybody didn't do anything correctly.

So you were talking about at the bipolar disorder meeting, there being a lot of people with lived experience, which you're considered someone with lived experience because family members are part of that group. And this app has really been, I wonder how your family members input has been involved in the development of the app.

Because that's quite, you know, that's sort of the wave of the future is that input gets integrated into our systems and structures for like research and for clinical, you know, clinical programming that family members and individuals input is super important. So was curious how that has been.

It's been really good because we are the customers, if you like it as a family, we are the customers because, I think for the, you know, for the individual who's living with managing the condition, you've got to keep the burden

burden

as low as possible.

just got to be easy because when things are good, they want to be getting on You don't want to be adding to that. It's, you know, it's tough. so I think keeping, it really simple then us as family members, what we wanted is kind of,

their life and when things are not, adding stuff on.

it really simple and easy for the individual and then from

reassurance when that was the right.

thing

to be getting and a sort of...

structure

to ask the questions when maybe there was

Maybe there's something

else going on. So what do I mean by that? How does that manifest? Well, it manifests by getting, we get a weekly

We

kind of read out that's just traffic lights, know, so traffic lights on sleep.

sleep

and activity and routine and so on. And so if those traffic lights are green, that's great y'know, don't need to bug someone

So

It's a great bug, one

every day and say, how are you doing? Did you sleep okay?

because

that can, you know, that can be quite wearing. So we get the traffic lights when everything's green and then if something turns yellow, red, then you get a, you get a, I hesitate to.

can be quite wearing after a

green gifts or even

call

it an alert because we're not trying to draw conclusions about anything being wrong. It's really, you get a nudge to ask a question, you know, so the human, you like, can get back involved because the technology.

It's a nudge

She's

done the monitoring and you bring a human back in, say, Hey, there's something funny here. Check in, you know? And so the practical consequences that mums not

a human back into the loop. Any signal here?

consequences. Not

texting you all the time saying how are you are you okay I haven't heard from

you blah blah. Because if the signs, then you can get on with your life. when

The green

And

there's something strange starts to happen.

And then you get, I see that you've not been sleeping

or your mood has been kind of off for two or three days. You know, let's have a talk. Let's talk about it. So that's really is, you know, that was the input of the family. First of all, keep it easy. then secondly, don't jump to conclusions but encourage the conversation when you see signs that need checking up on.

don't to

Yeah, I totally appreciate that from the clinical side. talk about signs all the time with our patients and their families and what are they and how can one help the other identify them. As far as the ⁓ app is concerned, I want to drill down a little further. Can you tell us exactly how these things are measured? The sleep, mood.

Yeah, exactly. So sleep, we can measure from whatever device is your favorite, if you see what mean. So if you've got an Apple watch or you like, a ring or Fitbit, or it doesn't really matter what it is. If you're measuring sleep with some sort of device, we'll pick that up. We have actually bipolar disorder, have a device, which is actually a sleep mat that goes underneath the mattress.

device. Apple Watch. I can order a ring.

We have a device, sleep mode.

And the reason that that

That's

our favorite device is again, keeping it simple. You don't have to do anything at all. Plugs in uploads automatically whether, you know, in the situation where someone's feeling really low and low energy and they just can't be bothered, we'll get those readings. In a situation where somebody is entering a kind of hypermania phase and they've got too many important ideas to get on with and they don't want to be doing

this thing and it upload.

still situation where.

per mania or even mania f-

Any.

charging of watches and we'll still get the data. So a device we measure

your activity

from your phone so just

steps on your phone. It's not, you know, we're not trying to track exercise or be a fitness app or anything like that but we can see patterns from your phone. and equally if you're wearing your watch during the day we'll get the steps from that as well. And then routine is a combination of those two. We see when you get up and when you go to sleep and that is day to day. then also point in the day, your most active time.

But we can see pattern, if you're wearing a watch during steps from that as well. Routine, actually.

How consistent. So what is your day?

If you're

normally kind of walking 20 minutes to work in the morning or to college, or whatever it might be, and then that just stops. we see that in a routine

or whatever.

routine

change. Again, we can't draw conclusion from

or a definitive from it,

but we can just say something's changed, you know, check in. So device and all of that, that comes back to the ease. There's no homework to do there for those things.

patients to do a mood diary. I remember learning this in residency and fellowship and I think I was successful with like two humans to do that every day. I mean, I didn't do it for my psychiatrist either. and it...

Exactly.

yeah, I mean, it's, even if people set out with the best of intentions then it kind of gets old quickly asking someone to do it every day. for mood what we actually do is we have a recording function you can just record a normal conversation and the app will identify your voice and eliminate the other voices and it'll just analyze, you know, the language that you've used.

Get sold quickly if you're big.

Dude, what was-

function and you can just bring normal conversation.

and

So

that's kind of, that's an easy thing. Alternatively, you can do a little audio diary.

or a plan for tomorrow.

And so that can be, you know, that's a healthy habit to be reflecting on, know, how you felt today or be thinking about what's coming up tomorrow and how you're going to approach it. So that's a healthy habit anyway. we, and we give you a little kind of summary of that, we're not keeping the data we analyze them. We do the numbers, Mindnumbers and then we delete the recording because from a privacy point of view, we want people to be able to be.

healthy habit anyway.

⁓ We're actually not keeping any of the recordings at all. we.

unguarded,

you like, in what they say and they can be unguarded as it's deleted immediately after it.

because it's deleted. Let's

analyzed.

Is it, I know we've talked about this in the past, but is it looking at tone and pace or just content in terms of language?

it's looking at all of those things. So we are looking at, then we'd using different methods but we're looking at tone, both in terms of the sort of pitch and, know, picking up laughter or picking up. crying

Using different methods, all of those things.

itch.

I'm not saying that we're expecting that on all of these voices.

So,

if it's there, actually, you know, literally will.

recognize those sounds.

And, then things that kind of indicate sadness from tone. So we're picking that up. we are actually doing a, speed speech speed count as well, kind of syllables per minute count. then with the language, we're looking for the way that sentences relate to one another or being used kind of well.

badness.

are actually doing.

with the language.

that sentences relate, sentences are even more

at all.

So in situations where somebody's ideas are jumping about or their train

about or the

of thought is really interrupted or it seems very vague and so on.

So, can

all of that up ⁓ and kind of give a structured output for those types of signals. And again, the objective isn't to be definitive. It's just to give a bit of information that then enables first the user and then second the carer and then third the professional to see a bit better what's been going on. Thanks,

Being

in the moment patterns because self-report as a clinician, we are asking people to go back and report on the period of time that they haven't seen you. My patients at Epic, you know, people see people at different frequencies. So even just asking like about sleep patterns in the last

month. Sometimes it's helpful the more I get to know someone and get to know their sleep patterns. But if you, you know, in terms of like diagnostic specificity, you're really looking at like a week, two weeks where things can become significant. And like having it seems like it's more would be more efficient just to have the data so that my time can be best served with the patient and not harassing them about trying to remember.

You know.

all of these qualities and all of these things that happen and the frequency that they happen, the intensity of how they happened over a month, two months.

Yeah, and that's what I was going to ask you to clarify, Peter, where does this information go? Right. So we have the user who's putting their information, their information about sleep and behaviors being collected. And then how is the family involved? How's the provider involved?

Yeah. So the user gets it, gets all the data if you like, and that's presented in the app in little dashboards. And you can choose whether you're looking at seven day view or a 30 day view or drilling down on last night and so on. So there's all of that kind of normal mobile app stuff. There's also a weekly summary that has a seven day view with traffic lights

Love, bye.

summary

so now you're not getting

Like I said, the time you went to bed or so on, you're just getting a traffic light, you got enough sleep or you didn't. So that's presented as a kind of overview and, but also with some text that pulls out the significant things that have gone on, you know, that, sleep was below average for this week, but you know, you did a good job of maintaining some activity during the day. And then there's even an insight there.

traffic light.

Okay. ⁓

about a

so maybe think about, you know, managing your routine so that you can keep the quality of sleep, you know, good. So this, we do the numbers, we do the traffic lights then the text and that, that report is available to the user, but it's also available to a trusted.

routine so

traffic lights and then we

contact.

call it a trusted contact. We're assuming

think

it's going to be a family member, but it's up to the user to choose who that is. honestly, if they choose because they're uncomfortable, they choose no one, then that's their choice. It's not what we'd necessarily want, but that's absolutely their choice. And this is part of the kind of trust we maintain that the user stays in control all the time of the data and so on. But yeah, the today user has the app.

Troy.

family has a weekly report and then the professional, can forward that report. We're actually not here today, but it's coming soon

a date range report. So just exactly what you were just describing Ashley, you could say, you know, could you send me the last six weeks and before the appointment, you'll get a last six weeks overview of sleep and activity and routine and the mood and how that's tracked That's tracked together and that's, you know, that's done perhaps the first 15 minutes. So that you've, you win a bit more time. You win a bit more time to talk to the individual about what either they want to talk about or you think.

and the mood and how

of your interview.

It would be.

is most important.

to do therapy, know, make adjustments as needed. What do you think the buy-in is going to be? Because I'm just thinking, playing devil's advocate of, you know, especially with AI, especially with how much privacy, those are air quotes, know, privacy is being challenged.

in our world in so many different ways. How do you think that people, especially in this age group, are going to respond to that? Because part of me thinks like, this is awesome. Like this makes things so much easier. And if I have to go see a doctor, I'd rather just like print them a report than have to like deal with this. But then there's also the, someone was having, it's like paranoia was one of their experiences that sort of was a...

early warning sign of something brewing, could see where it become very problematic.

Yeah, look, I mean, I think so that's, that's definitely the case and that we've done all the right things around privacy. We've absolutely done all the right things, but if you're the individual who's giving your data, you know, we're still asking your trust in that situation that we really are looking after it in the way that we say we are and everything's encrypted, things being used, you know, for anyone else, all of that sort of stuff. I.

trust.

and nothing.

I definitely think for people that are less comfortable, then they're probably going to for someone they trust says hey, this is okay. They're not going to rely on the company saying this is okay. They're going to wait for somebody they trust to say it's okay. So they won't be the first adopters. I think the first adopters are going to be people, number one, who really invested in their recovery and their stability.

until somebody they try

adopt.

See, they're ready.

And they're kind of looking for tools to help them to make the whole thing easier. Not easy because it's not all, it's hard work Yeah. But to take the kind of data gathering bit of it and the analytics bit to take that out the equation so you, you know, they can focus on.

Pools.

necessarily.

work can be hard.

Gathering it's a cool bit of it out of the equation

the recovery and habit building and all of that sort of stuff. So I think those people who are really invested in their recovery, maintaining this, those are going to be our first customers. then someone who's nervous about privacy and so on is going to hear it from someone else and then decide that it's okay.

and stability in some.

someone who's nervous about.

I love that there's a lot of individual choice in this, right? From downloading the app and utilizing it to choosing who you share your information with or you don't. Speaking of downloading the app, is this available? And if so, where can people get it?

Yeah, fantastic. It is available today. So the app is called Mindnumers, all one word, bipolar wellness. And that'll get you straight there. It's a subscription, but you get a free trial if you sign up for three months or a year and you obviously can just cancel if you don't, if it's not working for you, you can cancel before any money is paid. So definitely recommend using free trial.

called Mind Number.

wellness.

either three months.

the free

and seeing if it works for you. on the annual, it's at about $10 a month. Okay. any, you know, and I, the trivial sum, but you know, we've put a lot of work into it and we absolutely want to think we're giving, you know, very good value for that, but I recognize it's not a trivial sum. And I would say, you know, ask family whether they like the idea and maybe they'll help you out with it.

Is it super expensive.

and it works.

snort.

you

So exciting. The app is available. It's there for people to use. And it has been introduced to the world on your world tour, which I think creates a lot of potential for people to take charge of their recovery and really be super engaged with it.

Yeah,

and I'm excited to see the feedback and we love feedback. if people have got positive is obviously nice, negative is almost even better because we get to do improvements So if somebody uses it, finds a problem, absolutely let us know.

the improvements that way.

I know we have to close up shop, but I think it's so awesome to really in the app pull together the physical and the emotional, the biological pieces and the mood. It's like very whole, like those of us that take care of people or care for people with bipolar disorder very much see that it's a mind body. Like, you know, it might belong in the psychiatric.

community as the caregivers, but we're also physicians, so know how important, you know, your circadian rhythms are and how important the biology is. And especially for bipolar disorder, it's just a critical link. But it's hard to convey that to people. It's hard to convey that to the public when it's sort of presented as this like mental disorder period and that the app pulls all of that together.

Because sometimes my patients will get so shocked that all I want to talk about is like their sleep and activity and what they're eating. And they're like, I did not go, I'm not here to see my pediatrician. Like, why are you talking about all these things? But they're so important to, you know, whatever it is that they're dealing with and patterns and the rhythm and the schedule, so to say. that, the app.

You're going to get some warning from those things, you know, and the app in itself is not going to solve the problem for you, but it's going to give you the warning and then you go to the right place to get the help.

And then maybe it like is going to influence in a positive way, like the stigma, that, you know, because we're, you're proposing an app that is specifically for bipolar disorder right now. But within that, it's all of these physiologic signs that are, that are present. So it's like, it's not just, it's not just like, you know, it is not just this mind thing, you know, it's mind and body and that.

those things collectively are so important. It just seems like to maybe make it feel, just the reality of this disorder is that the mind and body are like equally sort of responsible and so important to be paying attention to all of those things.

Right.

And we get signals from both. ⁓ as I was going to say, think those, right. There is physical signals. There are signals coming from the brain and all those signals are being gathered in Mindnumbers, numbers, which is super exciting. Thank you for joining us today. Thank you for.

Very cool.

bringing your personal experience together with your professional expertise and contributing to this field. It's so needed and I really believe it's gonna be valuable to patients and their families. So thank you, Peter.

No, thank you. And look, it's working out for my family now. That's anyone that's living with this knows that the future is unpredictable but so far so good. so that's what I'd wish for anyone else dealing with bipolar disorder or any of the other kind of struggles that you're helping people with.

right?

as unpredictable.

wish for anyone.

That's amazing.

So if this has inspired anyone who's listening today, please go check out Mindnumbers on the app store, wherever you get your apps and, or share this with someone else ⁓ who has a diagnosis or a family or friend who's supporting someone living with bipolar disorder. There's so much potential here.