[av_section min_height=” min_height_px=’500px’ padding=’default’ shadow=’no-shadow’ bottom_border=’no-border-styling’ scroll_down=” id=” color=’main_color’ custom_bg=” src=” attach=’scroll’ position=’top left’ repeat=’no-repeat’ video=” video_ratio=’16:9′ video_mobile_disabled=” overlay_enable=” overlay_opacity=’0.5′ overlay_color=” overlay_pattern=” overlay_custom_pattern=”]
[av_heading heading=’Online Mental Health Therapy Innovations
and Other Mental Health News’ tag=’h1′ style=’blockquote modern-quote modern-centered’ size=” subheading_active=” subheading_size=’15’ padding=’5′ color=” custom_font=”][/av_heading]
[/av_section]
[av_textblock size=” font_color=” color=”]
Your Smartphone May Be The Newest Online Mental Health Therapy Clinician
As the growth of mental illness continues to outpace the availability of mental health providers, therapists and consumers alike are looking for mobile applications and social media to improve Online Mental Health Therapy. So it should be no surprise that there are now approximately 50,000 apps according to the Institute for Healthcare Informatics- most addressing anxiety and depression.
Since those dealing with depression or anxiety often struggle with leaving the house or meeting others in person, interactive media apps such as Pacifica can combat this isolation and help those lacking other means of getting support. Pacifica registered 600,000 new members in the last year alone.
Wearable Electric Patch May Ease PTSD
Roughly 3.5 percent of Americans struggle with PTSD, including survivors of rape, car accidents, domestic abuse and other traumas. An experimental brain treatment called “trigeminal nerve stimulation” (TNS) is offering them new hope to these victims. Essentially it is a small electrical patch that jolts the brain while patients sleep providing significant relief from the debilitating effects of PTSD.
Clinical trials have shown more than a 30 percent drop in PTSD symptoms while depression severity fell by over 50 percent. TNS represents a whole paradigm shift in Mental Health Therapy, challenging the notion that disorders are all about biochemical imbalances in the brain, rather brain circuitry and its calibrated stimulation.
Virtual Reality Therapy: Treating The Global Mental Health Therapy Crisis
While decades of well-established scientific research has demonstrated Virtual Reality’s benefits in improving Mental Health Therapy, there remains limited patient access worldwide. While severe disorders may require medication, techniques such as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and exposure therapy (ET) are highly useful for many other disorders.
Now, affordable mobile VR headsets, such as the Gear VR, will ensure that more patients can benefit from Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy. For those afraid of flying, The Virtual Reality Medical Center has a kit that includes software and hardware, airplane seats and a system to simulate the sights, sounds and sensation of flying.
Task Force recommends screening all teens for depression
The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force has recently recommended that primary care doctors should screen all adolescents annually for depression. Whereas in 2009, they suggested these screenings only for those who indicated the need for Mental Health Therapy, now they believe everyone is potentially vulnerable.
Expanding Interest In Using Pets for Mental Health Therapy
In the past ten years, animal assisted therapy has expanded far beyond a visit to the surgery recovery room or cancer treatment center. Whatever the explanation- that we have an innate propensity to connect with other living things, or that animals provide nonjudgmental support, programs continue to expand in size and scope.
Lately, animal-assisted therapy has been gaining traction at disaster sites as well. When horror first strikes, people often are unable to process their experience and benefit from Mental Health Therapy, so at that initial traumatic moment, a lick on the cheek is the most people can handle, and it helps!
[/av_textblock]
