DoD updates mood tracker smartphone app with new features

The Department of Defense has added new features to its smartphone application designed to monitor a soldier's long-term emotional health, according to a DoD announcement. The mobile app, called the T2 Mood Tracker, now enables users to send their personal information to their home computers and to share it with their healthcare providers.

The app, which is used in conjunction with therapy, records a range of emotions for anxiety, depression, head injury, stress, post-traumatic stress and a user's general well-being. The data, which is saved in a graphical or spreadsheet format, is then transferred via e-mail or other wireless connection to a patient's therapist.

"An essential part of therapy is the ability to understand a patient's behavior," said Dr. Julie Kinn, a psychologist at DoD's National Center for Telehealth and Technology, Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Wash., which developed the app. "The best way to do this is to record it as it happens over an extended period. When that information is collected after the fact, especially about moods, it tends to be inaccurate. T2 Mood Tracker's success with users is because of the easy and accurate way it collects their information."

First released in 2010, the T2 Mood Tracker mobile app, which is free and available for Android and Apple devices, has been downloaded more than 100,000 times. Although originally developed for members of the military to record and review their behavior changes, particularly after combat deployments, the app has also become very popular with civilian users around the world, according to the announcement.

DoD's National Center for Telehealth and Technology also recently released a stress-combating app for members of the military, enabling them to take advantage of biofeedback relaxation techniques. Called BioZen, the mobile app is touted as the "first portable, low-cost method for clinicians and patients to use biofeedback in and out of the clinic." Built on an open source Bluetooth Sensor Processing for Android framework, the app displays real-time data from several different body sensors including electroencephalogram, electromyography, galvanic skin response, electrocardiogram, respiratory rate, and skin temperature.

To learn more:
- read the announcement