Sebastiaan de Vries

CTO

Jan 31, 2024

Introducing Limbic Care: A Generative AI Care Companion for Mental Health Services

Limbic Care on a Phone

We're excited to be launching Limbic Care, a Generative AI Care Companion for Mental Health Services. Designed to be used by patients, before, in-between, and after group therapy sessions, Limbic Care represents a new way for Mental Health provider organisations to engage patients and maximise the impact of their clinicians.

Patient Engagement in Group Therapy

Engaged patients are the foundation of effective treatment. Patients who are engaged are more likely to attend treatment sessions, complete treatment courses, and recover reliably. Increasing patient engagement leads to more effective treatment, and a more effective service. However, in many services, group therapy suffers from higher than average drop out rates and sub-optimal reliable recovery rates.

The cause? Poor patient engagement.

Introducing Limbic Care

Limbic Care improves patient engagement in group therapy. It’s a Generative AI Care Companion for patients to use between therapy sessions. The Limbic Care app for iOS and Android engages patients with therapeutic content like activities and education, all in a friendly chat interface. The quality of the homework completed by patients is linked with treatment outcomes (Cammin-Nowak et al [1]), and Limbic Care helps patients complete it conveniently, on time, on their phone.

Limbic Care also helps patients navigate challenges with CBT itself, a factor behind patient drop out from therapy (Omylinska‐Thurston et al [2]), with Generative AI features like Free Text questions. With Generative AI features, users can ask questions about educational content, and get answers right when they need. All these features are made safe by the Limbic Layer, our suite of clinical and technical safeguards that ensure patient safety.

We're seeing early evidence that Limbic Care improves both the efficiency and effectiveness of treatment. Patients who used Limbic Care were more engaged. They had lower dropout rates, attended more sessions, and crucially, saw higher reliable recovery levels. They also recovered faster - achieving reliable recovery sooner in their treatment journey.

Built in Partnership with NHS Talking Therapies

Limbic Care was built in tandem with NHS Talking Therapies, with features tailored for you. Our reporting provides cohort level insights, and Limbic Care also includes our Crisis Detection Engine, a Machine Learning model that monitors all free text interactions with patients allowing them to self-identify as at risk so your service can take action.

Limbic Care is available now

Limbic Care is now available for all NHS Talking Therapies using Group Therapy. Learn more at https://limbic.ai/care


[1] Cammin‐Nowak, S., Helbig‐Lang, S., Lang, T., Gloster, A. T., Fehm, L., Gerlach, A. L., ... & Wittchen, H. U. (2013). Specificity of homework compliance effects on treatment outcome in CBT: Evidence from a controlled trial on panic disorder and agoraphobia. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 69(6), 616-629.

[2] Omylinska‐Thurston, J., McMeekin, A., Walton, P., & Proctor, G. (2019). Clients' perceptions of unhelpful factors in CBT in IAPT serving a deprived area of the UK. Counselling and psychotherapy research, 19(4), 455-464.