The Validity of Actometer and Speech Activity Measures in the Assessment of Depressed Patients

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Abstract
Daily levels of anxious and depressed mood as well as motor and speech activity were monitored for 5 depressed and 4 hypomanic patients during the courses of their in-patient treatment. The data were compared with results from 9 matched control subjects. Motor activity was assessed using the actometer.sbd.a wrist watch which translates activity into movement of the watch hands.sbd.and the speech activity by recording the pause, phonation, and total times taken to recite the digits from 1-10. Validity data for the actometer and for total and pause time were found to be encouraging as outcome monitors for the treatment of depressive affect; the significant results from the total time measure suggest that this simple method is worthy of more widespread use in clinical settings.