The British Journal of Psychiatry 145: 159-163 (1984)
© 1984 The Royal College of Psychiatrists
The validity of actometer and speech activity measures in the assessment of depressed patients
HP Godfrey and RG Knight
Daily levels of anxious and depressed mood, as well as motor and speech
activity were monitored for five depressed and four hypomanic patients
during the courses of their in-patient treatment. The data were compared
with results from nine matched control subjects. Motor activity was
assessed using the actometer--a wrist watch which translates activity into
movement of the watch hands--and the speech activity by recording the
pause, phonation, and total times taken to recite the digits from one to
ten. 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.