Flow Neuroscience: Expanding choice in depression treatment
Discover how Flow Neuroscience is expanding the options available for people living with depression by using a wearable device.
Depression is one of the most common mental health conditions, yet many people remain undiagnosed and standard treatments do not work for everyone. For those patients, finding effective alternatives that are convenient, acceptable and scalable with minimal side effects, remains a significant challenge.
Flow Neuroscience is working to expand the options available to people living with depression. For Dr Hannah Nearney, UK Medical Director at Flow, the motivation is deeply personal as well as professional. After nearly 25 years working in mental health, including 18 years in the NHS, she has seen first-hand the impact of depression and the need for better treatment options.
What is Flow Neuroscience and what problem does it solve?
Depression poses an enormous personal and public health burden. A substantial number of people with depression go unrecognised, while standard treatments such as medication and therapy fall short for many.
The Flow headset is an evidence-backed, wearable Class IIa medical device for treating depression at home.
It uses a gentle technique called transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), where a tiny electrical current modulates activity in an area of the brain involved in mood regulation in the pre-frontal cortex. Patients wear the device for 30 minutes several times per week. The headset is linked to a companion app, which allows remote clinician oversight to monitor adherence and response, and make adjustments where needed.
“Effective, alternative treatment options are desperately needed that are convenient, acceptable, and scalable, with minimal side effect burden. Flow treatment ticks these boxes.”
What was your inspiration and motivation?
For Hannah, the inspiration and motivation comes from having worked in mental health for nearly 25 years, including 18 years in the NHS, and seeing the need for better treatment options for depression.
“Mental healthcare is the underdog in terms of funding and innovation; and it is not good enough.”
“Mental healthcare is the underdog in terms of funding and innovation; and it is not good enough.”
Her motivation is also rooted in personal experience, having witnessed the impact of severe depressive illness in several close relatives and colleagues and experienced the devastating loss of a loved one as a result of depression-related suicide.
It is this combination of clinical experience and personal understanding that drives the ambition to make effective alternatives more widely available.
Why did you become a fellow?
Becoming an NHS Innovation Accelerator fellow is both a recognition of that ambition and an opportunity to help take it further.
“It’s both a huge honour and fantastic opportunity which provides mentorship and support, along with a peer community of innovators walking a similar path to learn from.”
For Flow Neuroscience, the NIA Fellowship provides access to a community of innovators who are navigating many of the same challenges around evidence, adoption and scale, alongside mentorship and support.
Looking ahead
Over the next five years, the ambition is clear: to give more people with depression access to a wider range of treatment options, earlier in their journey.
“My ultimate ambition is for expanded patient choice with Flow widely available early in people’s depression treatment journey.”
For Flow Neuroscience, that means making the treatment available to more patients and ensuring that people have meaningful choices when considering how their depression is treated.
The goal is to give people living with depression access to effective alternatives when existing treatments are not enough, and to make that choice available earlier.
Want to find out more? Visit the innovation page where you can contact the innovator directly, or check out their website.
