Tag Archives: mental health

Neolth Teams Up with NBA Star Kenny Thomas to Bring Mental Health Tools to Kids

November 2, 2023Business, Health, Innovation, Startups, UncategorizedChildrens Health, Health Moonshot, Health Transformer, Health Transformers, Katherine Grill, Kenny Thomas, Logan Plaster, mental health, Mental Health & Happiness, Mental Health and Happiness, mentalhealthawareness, NBA, Neolth, Teen HealthNicole Kinsey

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According to some estimates, out of the HHS, nearly 50% of kids have experienced some kind of mental health challenge. And not just anxiety about an upcoming test or depression over a breakup, but persistent feelings that interfere with daily activities.

Health innovation companies have been on the case for years, including many from the StartUp Health community. They’re tackling the science – like what’s the best way to treat mental health challenges in teens – and they’re also tackling engagement. You can have the best tools in the world after all, but if a young person doesn’t want to get help, it’ll never go anywhere.

Enter Katherine Grill, PhD, CEO & Co-founder of Neolth, one of our guests on this podcast episode. She’s taken her doctorate in behavioral neuroscience and her experience as a clinician, combined with hundreds of interviews with young people, in order to build a platform that meets kids where they’re at – offering self-guided mental health support in a variety of forms and flavors.

Joining the podcast with us is former pro basketball player, Kenny Thomas. After spending 11 seasons in the NBA, Thomas became an entrepreneur and community advocate, with a focus on youth experiencing financial hardship via his own foundation. And now he’s throwing his influence behind Neolth in order to help young people, particularly those involved in sports, gain access to mental health services.

On this StartUp Health NOW episode, we’ll cover the ins and outs of the Neolth platform as well as some of Dr. Grill’s strategy behind working with a brand ambassador, which is somewhat unique in the world of early-stage health startups.

Let’s get into it.

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Quantifying Mental Health: How Mobio Interactive Is Unleashing Precision Psychiatry at Scale

October 5, 2023Business, Health, Innovation, StartupsBechara Saab, Digital Health, health innovation, Health Moonshot, Health Tech, Health Transformer, Innovation, Logan Plaster, mental health, Mobio Interactive, StartUp Health NowNicole Kinsey

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There’s a phrase that gets thrown around a lot in business: “You can’t manage what you can’t measure.” It’s a quote attributed to Peter Drucker, the famed management consultant.‌

If business leaders such as Peter Drucker are right, not being able to measure the effect of an action would make it impossible to know if we should be doing more or less of that action – or if we should be doing it at all.

But if the saying is true in management, it’s even more true in clinical medicine in most areas of healthcare. Despite this seeming to be self evident, you’ve got to measure it to manage it yet there are still swathes of care that are delivered by some version of trial and error.‌

Our guest this week is Bechara Saab, PhD, CEO, Chief Scientist & Co-founder of Mobio Interactive, a company that joined the StartUp Health community in 2022.‌

Dr. Saab started as an academic researcher. It’s safe to say he loves measuring, loves gathering hard data and proving that he has found causation not just correlation in his work. So when his research introduced him to the modern world of mental health diagnosis and mental healthcare, he was taken aback by what he saw as a lack of solid objective measurements.‌

How could you help someone with anxiety, for instance, if you couldn’t accurately measure their anxiety before and after a treatment?‌

That is the thorny challenge that Dr. Saab is tackling with Mobio Interactive.

As you’ll hear, he’ll explain just how his research led to a solution that provides those objective measurements. His company, based in Singapore, came up with an accessible tool that provides clinically-validated therapy within a platform that objectively quantifies how a patient’s mental health is affected by therapy in real time and without a wearable, thereby allowing personalization of mental health therapy at scale.

Enjoy!

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Unpluq Helps People Get Off Their Screens and Back into Life

May 3, 2023Business, Health, Innovation, Startups, UncategorizedDigital Health, Health Moonshots, Health Transformers, Innovation, Logan Plaster, mental health, Mental Health & Happiness, Mental Health and Happiness, mental wellness, Wellbeing, wellnessNicole Kinsey

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 24:10 — 22.1MB)

Our StartUp Health NOW guest this week is Caroline Cadwell, the CEO and Co-founder of Unpluq – a Dutch company that joined StartUp Health in 2021.

Unpluq is on a mission to empower people to change their digital habits and improve their wellbeing.

Cadwell and her team have designed a consumer-facing device and platform that helps people regain control and intentionality with their time. They’re pushing back against a world where attention span is eroding, which has contributed to lower feelings of wellbeing and a decline in executive function.

Listen in to hear how they’ve tackled the problem.

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Affectifi’s ThinkHuman Platform Uses Streaming TV to Make Emotional Regulation Easy, Fun, and Accessible

August 30, 2022Business, Health, Innovation, Startups, UncategorizedAffectifi, Health Moonshot, Health Transformers, Ilya Lyashevsky, Logan Plaster, Melissa Cesarano, mental health, Mental Health & Happiness, ThinkHumanNicole Kinsey

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 35:47 — 49.2MB)

Emotional regulation. It’s a fancy term for something very simple, and something we often take for granted. Emotional regulation is a person’s ability to effectively manage and respond to an emotional experience. We do this work unconsciously all day long, deciding how to respond when we’re cut off in traffic or when we see something we disagree with on social media.

How we respond to emotional situations can have massive ramifications for our lives, yet we don’t typically spend much time thinking about it or trying to improve.

Our guests this week, Melissa Cesarano and Ilya Lyashevsky, got their PhDs at Columbia University studying the science of this field, called social-emotional learning. Now, they’ve poured their academic work into a startup called Affectifi, which StartUp Health backed last year.

In this conversation, we’ll hear from Mel and Ilya about their unique methodology for teaching emotional regulation to young people. It’s a platform called ThinkHuman and it actually piggy-backs training modules on top of popular content on streaming platforms like Netflix and Disney+.

Listen in to hear how it works.

Learn more and connect with the team at Affectifi.

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Dr. Tracy Dennis-Tiwary of Wise Therapeutics Shares How to Use Your Anxiety to Thrive

July 26, 2022Business, Health, Innovation, Startupsanxiety, Dr Tracy Dennis-Tiwary, Health Moonshots, Health Transformer, Logan Plaster, mental health, Moonshots, Personal Zen, Tracy Dennis-Tiwary, Wise Therapeutics, Wise TxNicole Kinsey

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 20:55 — 16.8MB)

Our guest this week, Tracy Dennis-Tiwary, PhD, doesn’t pull any punches. She’s the co-founder of Wise Therapeutics, which joined StartUp Health last year, and author of the new book Why Anxiety is Good for You (Even Though it Feels Bad).

As you’ll hear in the interview, Dr. Dennis-Tiwary is on a bold mission to change how society thinks about anxiety, so that millions of people can thrive in the face of adversity rather than settling for being comfortably numb. She’ll also explain how her work in digital therapeutics uses simple mobile games to help people rewire their brains. Wise Therapeutics’ research-backed app – called Personal Zen – trains users to make more positive subconscious choices, one swipe at a time.

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Learn more and connect with the team at Wise Therapeutics.

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Health Transformers Live: Gray Oncology Solutions, Gennev, AvoMD, Valera Health

April 5, 2022Business, Health, Innovation, Insights, Startups2022 StartUp Health Festival, Access to care, Cancer, Cure Disease, End Cancer, Health Moonshots, Lauren Schafer, mental health, Moonshots, StartUp Health @ ViVE, StartUp Health Festival, ViVE 2022, ViVE Miami, womens healthNicole Kinsey

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 19:29 — 17.9MB)

This week we wanted to break from our typical format and introduce you to four inspiring founders from the StartUp Health portfolio.

This episode is excerpted from an on-stage Health Transformer discussion that was held at the StartUp Health Festival @ ViVE in Miami Beach in March. You’ll hear from André Diamant, PhD, CEO & Founder of Gray Oncology Solutions, about how they’re improving efficiency in cancer care. Jill Angelo, CEO & Founder of Gennev, talks about how they’re improving women’s health in their post-reproductive years. Yair Saperstein, MD, CEO & Co-founder of AvoMD, explains how they’re crowdsourcing knowledge in order to put the best decision support tools in the palm of the physician’s hand. And finally, Tom Tsang, MD, CEO & Co-founder of Valera Health, explains how his company is bringing comprehensive mental health services to the virtual healthcare ecosystem.

The session was hosted by Lauren Schafer from StartUp Health. In addition to sharing the moonshot missions of each of their companies, they talk about changes seen in health innovation due to COVID’s impact, their biggest messages for partners and investors, and more.

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These Three Founders Are Upgrading the Mental Health Toolkit

July 27, 2021Business, Health, Innovation, Insights, Startups, UncategorizedAreva Martin, Butterflly Health, Health Moonshot Series, India Edwards, kavi misri, Logan Plaster, mental health, Mental Health & Happiness, Richard Hanbury, Rose Health, Sana HealthStartUp Health NOW

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 25:17 — 34.7MB)

This episode is part of our monthly Health Moonshot series. Last month it was all about brain health, today, we’re talking about founders and companies rethinking mental health and happiness. Areva Martin, CEO & Co-founder of Butterflly Health, has built a behavioral health platform that provides users with peer-to-peer support, therapist matching, access to coaching, and more. Kavi Misri, CEO & Founder of Rose Health, provides evidence-based mental health care for patients and providers on a platform built with tools and technology designed with the patient in mind. Lastly, Richard Hanbury, CEO & Founder of Sana Health, has developed a non-addictive simple mask and headphones that uses audiovisual stimulation to increase the balance between the left and right sides of the brain leading to greater relaxation.

In this episode, co-hosted by Logan Plaster and India Edwards, the three entrepreneurs break down their innovative solutions and how they’re advancing mental healthcare.

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For Margaret Laws, Innovation Springs From Co-Creation

May 4, 2021Business, Health, Innovation, Insights, Startups, UncategorizedAdolescent Health, adolescents, California Health Care Foundation, child health, HopeLab, Margaret Laws, mental health, mental illness, Steven KreinStartUp Health NOW

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 53:29 — 73.5MB)

Longtime friend of StartUp Health Margaret Laws has built a career on cross-sector, interdisciplinary partnerships. For 17 years, she served as the Director of Public Financing and Policy and the Director of Innovation for the Underserved program at the California Health Care Foundation. Today, as CEO and President of HopeLab, a social innovation lab founded and funded by the creators of eBay, she’s shifted her focus toward improving the health and wellbeing of adolescents. HopeLab’s multifactorial approach seeks to broach the many systemic and structural causes of mental illness in young people: “If there’s one thing that really requires multi-sectoral collaboration, this is it,” Laws says. At a recent Fireside Chat with StartUp Health co-founder Steven Krein, Laws explained how HopeLab’s uniquely holistic approach allows the company to tackle challenges from every angle.

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Former NFL Wide Receiver Torrey Smith Partners With Rose Health to Promote Mental Health Resilience

December 2, 2020Business, Health, Innovation, StartupsBaltimore Ravens, Eagles, Football, Logan Plaster, mental health, NFL, Niners, Panthers, Ravens, Rose, Rose app, Rose Health, Rose Smarter Health, StartUp Health, Super Bowl, Torrey SmithStartUp Health NOW

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 19:23 — 26.6MB)

This week, two-time Super Bowl Champion and former Ravens wide receiver Torrey Smith announced that he was joining mental health startup Rose Health as an ambassador and investor. On this episode, StartUp Health’s Logan Plaster catches up with Torrey to learn about life after the NFL, and why it was important for him to become an advocate for mental health resilience.

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How LifeBio Is Using the Power of Storytelling to Improve Mental Health for Seniors

November 10, 2020Business, Health, Innovation, Startups, UncategorizedBeth Sanders, coronavirus, Covid 19, COVID19, elder care, Healthy Longevity, LifeBio, Logan Plaster, Loneliness, Longevity, memory care, mental health, Pandemic Response, senior, StartUp HealthStartUp Health NOW

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 30:52 — 42.4MB)

In 2020, the coronavirus caused a societal lock-down like this generation has never seen before. Many who were already isolated and lonely — like seniors – were put into a desperate situation. Beth Sanders, CEO and Co-founder of LifeBio, a startup that’s been with StartUp Health since 2014, has always had a heart for isolated and lonely seniors. She’d worked with them for years, helping them to tell their stories, using what’s called reminiscence therapy. But COVID-19 put LifeBio and this important work into overdrive. Not only was the work needed more than ever, but LifeBio was able to connect the dots between fighting loneliness and improving health outcomes. Turns out a phone call with a trained conversationalist can fight depression, anxiety and keep you mentally nimble. Their findings got the attention of health systems, insurance companies, and even won them a coveted SBIR grant. Logan Plaster, Media Director at StartUp Health, caught up with Sanders to learn more about how LifeBio works and the critical role of storytelling in healthcare in a post-COVID world.

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