Online Counseling

Obesity is on the rise in the United States.  The hectic pace of life combined with a sedentary lifestyle leads to poor food choices, little time for exercise and weight gain.  Many people struggle with trying to find time to eat healthy and exercise.  When it is hard to find the time to exercise and make healthy meals how would a person ever find time to meet with a dietician or nutritional counselor?  This is where technology comes in.  One of the biggest fields to utilize telemedicine are counseling fields such as nutritional and mental health counseling.  Why would these fields embrace such technology?  What makes telemedicine an ideal delivery platform for their services?

Counseling services generally take place in an office located in a hospital, medical center or private office such as a storefront office, in an office park or a home office.  The patient and counselor meet to discuss the patient issues such as overeating, depression or anxiety.  Many people push off these appointments due to finding it hard to meet the counselor in person.  With the emergence of technologies such as telemedicine counselors figured out how to meet their patients needs.  They refer to these services as e-therapy, e-counseling and cyber counseling.  Patients have the ability to "meet" with the counselors using a laptop and webcam or even a smart phone using videoconferencing technology.  

Below is an example of what a patient can expect during a telemedicine counseling session.

Nutritional counselors can also benefit from technology such as FitBits in order to further treat their patients.  When a patient wears a FitBit device the nutritional counselor can track the patients activity level along with food intake.  They can then utilize telemedicine appointments to go over the data and identify areas of improvement as well as encourage progress.  The appointments can work around a time that works best for both the counselor and patient.  With both parties having the ability to "meet" from home it allows for appointments during non-traditional hours such as very early in the morning before work or later at night after dinner.  The flexibility offered by technology may enable patients to stay on track rather than miss appointments and continue bad habits when they are unable to find time to meet with their counselor.