In recent years awareness about mental health has gained significant importance including addressing impacts on conditions like Major Depressive Disorder (MDD). Clinical depression also known as Major Depressive Disorder is a more severe and advanced form of depression. It is a mental health condition in which a person has a depressed or low mood and has no interest in any activities and makes to feel sad. It affects how you feel, behave, think, and act, leading to emotional imbalance and physical problems. Hence it is a disorder that will affect your daily life activities and needs popper treatment.

Therapists and professionals treat the condition of Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) in different ways including prescribing anti-depressant tablets, psychotherapy, counseling patients, etc. Along with medication, the healthcare sector has evolved with advancements in technology accounting for this development of the Smart Therapy app ‘Rejoyn’, which has been deemed to be helpful in mental health management. In this article, we talk about the smart mobile therapy app which is recently been approved FDA, as an add-on treatment for depression that can be used in treating adults who are taking anti-depressants. This is also followed by the working and effectiveness of the Rejoyn app in treating MDD.

Rejoyn: Smart Theary App

Depression is observed to be one of the most common mental health diseases among adults in the US. Rejoyn is a smartphone app designed by Otsuka Pharmaceutical and Click Therapeutics that can be used as an add-on treatment along with anti-depressant medication. It can be suggested to people older than 22 years who are suffering and taking diagnoses for major depressive disorder. Dr. Jhon Kraus executive vice president and chief medical officer at Otsuka says “Rejoyn represents a novel and exciting adjunctive treatment option to address major depressive disorder symptoms that complements the current standard of care”.

The clinical trials for Rejoyn were done for 13 weeks where around 400 adults were observed and diagnosed with major depressive disorder who were between the age group of 22 and 64 and were already taking an antidepressant. Participants in the trial were randomly treated with the Rejoyn or Sharm app. People who were treated with Rejoyn saw improvement in symptoms of depression which was measured by asking some standard questions to the patient. After the completion of 1 month with a six-week treatment course with Rejoyn, participants continued using it and could see improvements in their condition with no side effects. 

The course consists of three outcomes, where per week talking for 5 minutes, and cognitive-emotional exercise for 20 to 30 minutes with three clinical validations. For a week the total time given for treatment should be around 2 hours.

After all these clinical trial results and with its keen observation The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the first perception therapy app and granted it to be used along with the treatment.

How does the Rejoyn works

The smart therapy app Rejoyn is a technology-based app that is mainly dependent on the Emotional Faces Memory Task (EFMT). In this technology, patients are asked to recognize emotion by looking at a series of faces, and for every face, patients need to identify the faces in previous series that had the same emotion, which helps in brain activity.

The Rejoyn app cannot be downloaded by anyone it needs a prescription and has not yet launched. The app will be available for people in 2024 based on news. Otsuka wants to try to make Rejoyn affordable and accessible but has not revealed pricing yet.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the advent of the Smart Therapy app ‘Rejoyn’ heralds a new technology in the landscape of mental health management, especially in treating major depressive disorder. The effectiveness of Rejoyn is something that remains in question. Dr. Torus says “We have effective depression treatments already, but not everyone responds,” and using an app cannot be a stand-alone treatment. There are so many apps that are currently available today for depression but Rejoyn is the first FDA-approved app for treating depression along with medication for adults. Apart from inventions and advancements, people should be very cautious when it comes to health and need to use the right and efficient tools in medication.