Damian Sendler on Uses of Telehealth in Mental Health
Damian Sendler – The most famed use of telemedicine approaches has been in psychotherapy and psychiatry. It is easy to see the appeal of using online technologies to expand treatments to people affected by psychological distress. There are different ways of providing psychotherapy through digital apps. The most cost-effective approach involves the use of pre automated, algorithm-based applications targeting the needs of the user based on self-reported complaints and symptoms. Typically, a person experiencing symptoms of low energy, depression, anxiety will go into the dedicated application, specify there symptomology using predefined menu options, and the mobile app opens up an algorithm for treatment. Typically, the users are provided with self-relaxation techniques, educational reading materials comma, and information about community-based resources available to them, based on their geographic location. The more popular applications include the ability to connect with a psychotherapist live, allowing the user to engage in a conversation that meant to provide therapeutic healing and guidance. In the recent years, experience with these types of services has proved that many users were dissatisfied with the quality of guidance they were receiving via text messages or live chat.
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As applications expanded and the user base grew over time, certain mobile apps experienced that dilemma between providing quality therapeutic support and cutting down the cost of therapy period. In traditional psychotherapy, provided by a psychologist or psychiatrist, the cost of therapy tends to be the most prohibitive aspect of the patients’ willingness to participate in treatment. Therefore, mobile applications seemed like a win-win situation for most people, given that digitalization of therapy seemed like an ideal way to streamline somewhat repetitive service for the masses. Our experience has shown that mobile applications are filled with therapists uncommitted to their patience, or lacking appropriate expertise. Furthermore, it is difficult to evaluate someone via digital interaction without understanding their background story. Additionally, many of the digital therapists work with multiple clients at the same time, which leads to professional burnout and can even confuse these providers regarding what sort of help each other clients require.
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Psychiatrists have been a lot more resistant to providing therapy via digital technologies. Some institutions, such as the United States veterans administration, have been able to pioneer telehealth services for the masses. The American military has also been hugely successful in utilizing video-based therapy to help its combat personnel deal with post-traumatic stress and anxiety. Psychiatrists realize that there are certain limitations to treatments provided via the Internet and also recognize the constraints imposed by laws protecting patient privacy.
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Future of Telehealth
There’s no question that telehealth offers incredibly powerful tools for caring for patients remotely. That technology cannot be adopted hastily for the masses without understanding the consequences of doing so without appropriate clinical applicability. In other words, there needs to be a guideline for digitalizing therapies. Whether we are dealing with questions related to general well-being, the stress associated with life events, or medication maintenance, educational and government institutions need to be able to verify the usability of telehealth solutions in the context of specific health problems. Recent literature is encouraging in showing that globally there are hundreds of studies completed each year evaluating the usability of telehealth solutions, using randomized controlled studies. The results of these studies are readily available via the Internet search and show promising applicability for just about any imaginable health complaint that patients might have.
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