Over the past few years, mental health has been the most popular topic of discussion among employers, artists, therapists, and almost everyone. It’s because our modern-day lifestyle gives rise to personal expectations, professional targets, and expectations born out of social media content, which often make a person take on extra stress and anxiety.
The need to voice up mental health issues like depression, general anxiety disorder, being prone to panic attacks, and tension is essential. Today, people are becoming more vocal than ever on these aspects and are willing to seek help. It is here that technology has a huge role to play with mental health trends that keep changing each year, enabling therapists to leverage the ones that promise better patient outcomes.
The latest advancements in technology have resulted in telehealth services, AI-driven assessments, and mental healthcare apps. These developments are dissolving the barriers to treatment and providing immediate resources for early diagnosis and coping strategies.
Additionally, it makes it all the more imperative for therapists and mental healthcare practitioners to count on a few trends to improve their service delivery. Do you want to know what these trends are? If so, in this article, we will discuss the advanced trends that therapists should look into in 2024 and beyond.
Mental Healthcare Trends to Count On
The global online mental health market was valued at $23.45 billion in 2023 and is estimated to expand to nearly $72.3 billion by 2032. Hence, advanced mental healthcare tools are going to be part of this evolving market.
The trends that therapists and mental health counselors should consider to improve their practice include:
Use of Virtual Reality
One of the best examples of advanced use of the latest technology in therapy is virtual reality (VR). This technology helps to immerse patients in a 3D and controlled environment. It offers a distinctive setting for exposure therapy, which is highly helpful in treating PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) and phobias.
Let’s try to understand this with the help of an example. Consider a person who is afraid to fly. They can experience a simulated flight through VR. The therapists can manage and monitor the variables that make this technology highly adaptable. Additionally, when patients gradually become comfortable, it will automatically increase its challenge levels.
The other advantage of VR applications is real-time feedback. Using this trend, therapists can gauge physiological responses such as body language and heart rate during therapy sessions.
Additionally, VR also plays an essential role in pain management. Patients who have experienced excruciating pain have found VR-based distraction procedures very effective. It has provided them with the relief they needed to carry on with their daily life functions.
The real-time nature and adaptability of VR are two of the best aspects of this technology. The applications are broad, ranging from treating certain phobias to providing new ways to treat pain.
High-End Billing Software
For most therapists, managing high operation costs and retaining a stable billing cycle at work can prove to be challenging. There are mental health practitioners who manage their billing totally by themselves without seeking any help, and that can affect other areas of work. Hence, it is necessary for therapists to opt-in for advanced behavioral health billing software.
It enables them to streamline the entire billing process. As a result, it enhances the tracking of claims and documentation and leads to the timely filing of clean claims. It also effectively checks for earlier authorizations and enhances revenue.
Millin Associates states that leading names in this domain have recognized the gap present in the industry for billing software. Hence, these market players have come up with advanced billing software that gets updated continuously as the payer and state rules and regulations change. It ensures that therapists remain compliant as they increase their revenue.
Digital Therapeutics
This is a field of mental health technology that blends software and medical expertise in treating multiple conditions.
Here we can consider Brain.fm, which is a platform for developing specialized music that impacts brain activity. The brand uses FMRI and EEG data improved by AI to create music that supports certain mental states, such as relaxation and focus. It only goes on to show the way technology in therapy is becoming data-driven and personalized.
The other example is Pear Therapeutics, which specializes in PDTs (prescription digital therapeutics) that provide various software-based treatments for chronic insomnia and substance abuse. It provides both clinicians and patients with advanced tools to have an interactive approach to therapy.
The ability of these online solutions to collect and assess data indicates that the treatments can be highly refined. The PDTs are put through rigorous clinical trials and testing to ensure that they provide the same quality as commonly used drugs. This scrutiny adds efficiency and credibility to the treatment, which ensures better patient outcomes.
Summing up, it is thus safe to say that technologies used in mental health treatment are more than a trend. Instead, it is a transformative force that is all set to redefine the therapeutic practice space. Hence, it makes sense that therapists stay clued into these three trends discussed above and leverage them so that their service offerings improve, which leads to better patient care and outcomes.
