BALTIMORE — Former Ravens Wide Receiver Torrey Smith is once again making his mark on the community. In November, Smith and his wife Chanel helped reopen the Hilton Rec Center in West Baltimore, now he joins Rose Health as an investor and brand ambassador to promote mental health resilience.
"Mental health has always been important to me," Smith explained. "I'm a guy, a man who didn't understand that until I was older, some of the challenges that we had growing up, some of the trauma that I experienced, I wasn't really aware of it until I met my wife and so she helped expose me to different things."
Smith said he internalized things a lot and because of that he carried a lot of weight.
"I was really kind of cohorted in a way towards a lot of things. I wasn't very emotional about certain things and my wife was like, this isn't normal. And so it kind of made me think a little bit and kind of peel back some layers. And so...I've been comfortable speaking out about it and to learn about Rose technology."
The Rose app is a mental health patient monitoring app that uses different AI and language processing in speech and emotion to help identify signs of depression and mood disorder.
"The Rose app is meant to be a measurement based tool," explained Rose Health CEO and founder Kavi Misri. "It's meant to be used outside of the session outside of the office whenever and wherever a patient is a need of supplemental help to build on coping mechanisms, to build mental health."
Misri says the the way it works is very straightforward, either your primary care doctor or your therapist will determine whether you need the app, then after downloading through their clinical dashboard, you then once you download it, you will be asked to say two clinical measures...and then you're free to utilize the Rose app on a daily basis."
"So on a daily basis, you'll enter in your daily mood, your daily anxiety, and then you journal. So journaling has shown to be extremely helpful with the therapy process and what we've done is we've taken back to the next level by being able to leverage deep technology," explained Misri. "So we've built an in-house natural language processing system that can detect semantic tone and leverage sentiment analysis. So we have a really clear understanding of how the patient is doing so we know whether they're dealing with financial issues, issues with work, or just pure nervousness of worries."
He says that because of the measurement system and the information, it'll create what is called a Rose score or essentially a person's mental health credit score. Based on that score, they push targeted content for self care in the form of articles, audio and videos.
"The entire goal is that as you use Rose, we learn more about you and then we push out targeted content. That's evidence-based that will help you with coping mechanisms, as well as building mental health resiliency," said Misri. "And at the same time, all of this information is updated in real time and your clinician can see how you are progressing or more importantly, regressing, and then they can take the appropriate care path in being able to address"
Smith says for him, he loves the app the most because it allows him to keep track of how he's feeling and to be more alert of triggers.
"Because as I've grown and become more aware of myself and my feelings and things that trigger me, I learned that the most powerful key for me and having the belt, the healthiest mental health that I can have is about being aware. And so that helped the app helps me with that and to have the opportunity to share with the others, it's used because I understand a lot of people feel like they're alone."
We're living in a pandemic, and Smith agrees that mental health is more important now than ever.
"There's a lot more stress, a lot more trauma going on. People are literally stuck at home, losing jobs, abuse is rising, domestic violence is rising, sexual assault is rising from people within their own homes. So it's important to be aware of that and don't be afraid to reach out, and that weight, that pressure is real, the feelings that people want to suppress, it's real feelings, but you have to find the opportunity to reach out and know that you deserve to be happy," Smith said. "You deserve to be at a place of peace. You deserve to be comfortable. You deserve to be free. And in order to do that, you have to reach out to someone, you have to reach out and have help, you know, and you can't do it alone sometimes."
Smith says it doesn't mean that you're weak just because you need help.
"It's important that you know that mental health is a journey, it isn't just 'Oh, Hey, I talked to a therapist today, so I'm fine', no, it's a journey. You have to do your part. You have to work. You have to challenge yourself. You have to step out of your comfort zone. You have to have a therapist. Sometimes you have to have so many other things yet that the app to hold yourself accountable. There's so many different things that you can do, but it's a journey and know that you're not alone."
If you're interested in using the Rose app, you can download it here for free. You can also contact your primary care doctor about it, your therapist as well and if you don't have a therapist and would like to use one, another feature on the app includes the option to find a therapist.