Wearable sensors detect childhood internalizing disorders during mood induction task

Area of Science:

• Child psychology
• Biomedical engineering
• Clinical diagnostics

Background:

• Early identification of internalizing disorders like anxiety and depression in children under 8 is crucial.
• Untreated symptoms can lead to severe adolescent and adult mental health issues, including suicide risk.
• Current diagnostic methods often lack objective measures.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate an instrumented fear induction task using motion data for identifying internalizing disorders in young children.
• To demonstrate the efficacy of inertial measurement unit (IMU) data in capturing movement patterns related to psychopathology.
• To compare IMU data with traditional behavioral codes and parent/clinician reports.

Main Methods:

• Collected six degree-of-freedom movement data from a belt-worn IMU in 63 children (ages 3-7) during a fear induction task.
• Correlated IMU motion data with established behavioral fear codes.
• Compared IMU findings with parent-reported child symptoms and clinician-rated internalizing diagnoses.

Main Results:

• IMU motion data, unlike behavioral codes, showed significant associations with parent-reported symptoms and clinician diagnoses.
• Motion data captured objective behaviors indicative of child psychopathology.
• The IMU approach demonstrated higher feasibility in data collection and processing.

Conclusions:

• IMU-based motion analysis is a sensitive and objective tool for detecting internalizing disorders in young children.
• This technology offers a more feasible and potentially more accurate method for early diagnosis compared to traditional approaches.
• Further research is warranted to explore the full potential of IMU-based diagnostics in child mental health.