e-health in eating disorders: Virtual Reality and telemedicine in assessment and treatment.
No Thumbnail Available
Date
2004-10-01
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
e health the integration of telehealth technologies with the Internet and shared virtual reality could become a significant enabler of consumer health initiatives In fact they provide an increasingly accessible communication channel for a growing part of the population In the past decade medical applications of virtual reality VR and telemedicine have been rapidly developing and the technology has changed from a research curiosity to a commercially and clinically important area of medical informatics technology The chapter details the characteristics of the Experiential Cognitive Therapy ECT an integrated inpatient outpatient 4 weeks and telemedicine approach 24 weeks that tries to enhance the classical cognitive behavioral method used in the treatment of eating disorders through VR sessions and telemedicine support in the follow up stage Particularly using VR and telemedicine ECT is able to address body experience disturbances interpersonal relationships self efficacy and motivation to change key issues for the development and maintenance of eating disorders that are somehow neglected by actual clinical guidelines