Virtual reality and telemedicine based experiential cognitive therapy: Rationale and clinical protocol.
Giuseppe Riva, Monica Bacchetta, Gianluca Cesa, Sara Conti, Enrico Molinari · 2001
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 in-patient/out-patient (4 weeks) and telemedicine approach (24 weeks), that tries to enhance the cognitive-behavioral therapy used in the treatment of eating disorders by means of VR sessions and telemedicine support in the follow-up stage. In particular, 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. This approach will be highlighted by the presentation of the clinical rationale, its different phases and by systematic analysis of the results obtained in different preliminary studies.