Rejoyn: The First Digital Treatment for Depression

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Treatment for depression has truly entered the digital age with Rejoyn, the first prescription app for depression. Developed collaboratively by Otsuka Pharmaceutical and Click Therapeutics, this groundbreaking app offers a new approach to addressing major depressive disorder.

What is Rejoyn?

Rejoyn is not intended as a main source of treatment for major depression. Instead, the FDA only approved it as an addition to existing treatment like antidepressant medications. Additionally, the prescriptions for the app are restricted to people aged 22 and older.

Depression is one of the most common mental illnesses in America. Over 8% of people are suffer major depression symptoms in a given year. About 18% of people have experienced depression or been treated for it at some point in their lives. Unfortunately, up to 30% of people receiving antidepressant medications continue to have depression symptoms in the long run while on the medications. The creators of Rejoyn argue that these are the people that an additional treatment like this app could help.

How does Rejoyn work?

Rejoyn uses a six-week program that integrates cognitive-emotional training with cognitive behavioral therapy lessons. The app also regularly prompts users to keep up with the exercises. Rejoyn is essentially taking some of the critical aspects of therapy and putting them in a portable, easily accessible platform. This helps people more easily build up a set of skills for managing their condition, especially when they are out in the real world dealing with every day struggles. The central key the supposed efficacy of Rejoyn is its training method, the Emotional Faces Memory Task.

What is the Emotional Faces Memory Task?

The Emotional Faces Memory Task has people identify and compare emotions depicted on a series of faces. These include feelings like happiness, sadness, anger, or fear. Users focus on specific aspects of the faces, such as the eyes or mouth, to figure out the underlying emotions. Over time, this helps people improve their ability to recognize and process emotions effectively.

This approach comes from research that suggests that difficulties in emotion recognition and regulation are common features of many mental health disorders. By delivering personalized brain-training exercises, Rejoyn aims to enhance connections within brain regions associated with depression, potentially improving mental well-being.

Weak evidence

However, it’s crucial to note that while the idea of Rejoyn is promising, this cognitive-emotional training approach is still in its early stages. The FDA clearance for Rejoyn was based on data from a clinical trial involving participants diagnosed with major depressive disorder resistant to antidepressants. While users of the Rejoyn app showed some improvement in depressive symptoms, the average change was not much better than that observed with a “placebo” app in the trial.

Treatments that have weaker evidence such as this only get approved for use because they are meant to supplement existing, more proven treatments like antidepressants. However, the minimal risks suggest Rejoyn may still be worth considering as a treatment option for people with major depressive disorder. The app will likely be available for download in late 2024.