What is Digital therapeutics? Beginner’s Guide?
Digital therapeutics (DTx) is a subfield in digital health.
It uses high-quality software programs to treat, manage and prevent diseases and medical disorders.
The treatment involves Lifestyle and behavioral changes. Because of the digital nature of the methodology, data can be collected and analysed as both a progress report and a preventative measure
The collected data can be analysed for preventive measures and progress reports.
What is Digital therapeutics?
“Digital therapeutics deliver evidence-based therapeutic interventions to patients that are driven by high-quality software programs to prevent, manage, or treat a broad spectrum of physical, mental, and behavioral conditions.
It forms an independent category of evidence-based products within the broader digital health landscape, and are distinct from pure-play adherence, diagnostic, and telehealth products – Digital Therapeutics Alliance
The term itself has been in use since around 2012. The first mention of the term in a peer-reviewed research publication was in 2015, in Dr Cameron Sepah paper.
In the intervening years, digital therapies have grown to be more and more common, leading to some excellent digital products that can help people with mental illness.
Digital therapies have helped people of all ages and backgrounds to overcome their mental health struggles.
Some of these therapies are interactive, such as Soothing Seas, which is a video game that helps people who have been sexually assaulted.
Others, like Expressive Therapy, are aimed at reducing the symptoms of anxiety by giving users the opportunity to express their thoughts and feelings about trauma through drawing.
Tree of Life, a game that focuses on mental wellness rather than mental illness, also lets users explore their feelings.
USAGE of Digital Therapeutic
Digital therapeutics can be used in various ways. The term can be defined as treatment that uses digital and internet-based health Technologies to improve a patient’s behaviour.
Digital therapeutics can be combined with other conventional treatments, such as pharmacological.
As of now, digital therapeutics are used by patients, students, and medical professionals.
Digital therapeutics acts as a preventive measure for patients who show the risk of developing serious health conditions.
For example, a pre-diabetic patient will be suggested digital therapeutics as a method about the consequences that may lead to a diabetes diagnosis.
Existing medical conditions can also be treated with the help of digital therapeutics.
For instance, a patient who has been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes can manage it effectively.
What is Digital Therapeutics and Methods
Varied conditions can be treated with digital therapeutics. It helps patients to change their lifestyles by using the method of cognitive-behavioural therapy.
It helps to prevent numerous conditions, including Alzheimer’s disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, obesity, lung disease, insomnia, hypertension, and others.
Neurological and psychological symptoms are also treated with digital therapeutics.
For instance, patients with disorders like depression, comma anxiety, and ADHD receive cognitive behavioural therapy through a mobile device.
A study suggested that mobile mindfulness apps help decrease acute stress and improving mood.
How does it function?
Dtx is a new form of application that helps in the treatment of the disease through the change in patient behavior and remotely monitoring.
Favorable outcomes are achieved with its applications; for instance, patience can be encouraged to follow a drug regimen and exercise routine.
Difference between DTX and other wireless application is that Dtx applications help to target specific disease which is particularly chronic like diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and pulmonary disease.
What makes Digital therapeutics so powerful?
- Accurate data collection: Now with the introduction of various Now majority various wearables & connected devices, data can be collected on real-time. Earlier, when a person used to go to the hospital, the doctor used to ask various questions to understand, what may have happened.
- And patients used to tell, based on their memory.
- Many times, patients were not able to recall & provide correct data. Now, with wearables & other smart devices, installed at home, accurate data to doctors can be provided.
- This helps a doctor to quickly arrive at the root cause of the issue.
With various wearables and smart consumer electronics (including smart devices in your bathroom), day-to-day normal data ( what type of food was taken, how the person was behaving, voice level, facial expression, walking etc) can be captured & used for analysis.
Apart from that, now with Interface with medical equipment, other data like blood sugar levels, blood pressure, pulse rate, can be collected by picking up wireless signals from a sensor embedded in the patient’s skin.
Devices such as blood glucose meters, insulin pumps, at other wearable gadgets can send data as a unified system.
It is also used for monitoring heart and lung conditions.
- Faster data comparison & detection: Taking from the earlier first point, now full data of a patient can be compared, very quickly, against, vast amount of data, available worldwide.
- This helps in correct & early detection of a symptom, leading to even prevention of disease.
- So, if a personal has a family history of diabetes, during early age itself, symptoms can be easily detected & During early phase itself, of disease, person can be advised to take necessary precaution.
Here, with help of cognitive or motivational stimulation (gamification), behavioural change can be promoted.
This will help in better adherence to medicine & therapy (can be physical exercise, diet control, or meditation.) that could delay or prevent the onset of chronic disease.
Dtx is also showing good results in medication adherence by helping people increasing the benefits of conventional Pharmaceutical therapies.
For example, in the US, DTx company developed a robot to help people take their medications on time, preventing the problem of medication non-adherence.
- With help of virtual reality (VR), help & therapy can be provided to persons, who are mentally disturbed.
- This mental disturbance/trauma, could have been caused by various reasons (Ragging at college, work pressure, loss of dear one, ..).
- Through VR, it can be identified, which part of the earlier incident is causing disturbance to a person & accordingly, counseling/therapy can be provided.
Over the past few decades, the technology has been used for a few conditions and in specialist centres.
The therapy of PTSD has extensive use of this technology. DTx application in VR Technology helps people to learn by experiencing real-world situations.
For example, with the help of VR, patients are in a certain situation, where they learn how to think, act differently and feel.
Now many chronic diseases or neurological disorders, can be treated with Dtx.
There is an increase in applications for the treatment of Mental Health disorders.
Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) promising results in the treatment of depression and anxiety disorder.
- Personalised Medicines: Based on real-time data of each person, personalized medicines, therapy & can be offered to the elderly population as well as people with a special conditions.
In addition to addressing different medical conditions, digital therapeutics also support various stages of the patient health care journey.
They can collect, synthesize, and analyse patient data so clinicians can personalize treatment and work with the patient to avoid complications.
DTx and primary care
Dtx this also improved primary care practice. The advantage of DTx is that it provides physicians an option to provide treatment anywhere and anytime, going beyond the physical borders of a Hospital or clinic.
Due to its low-cost treatment, primary care physicians can optimum benefit from it.
Monitoring medication adherence can easily be done by primary care physicians with the help of detailed applications.
There are DTx programs that help in monitoring blood sugar readings, diet, medication intake what can be reviewed by a physician for getting a clear picture of the patient’s health.
Conclusion
What is Digital therapeutics?
Digital therapeutics, or digital therapy, is the use of digital technology such as mobile devices and apps to help people with mental health conditions such as depression, anxiety, or post-traumatic stress disorder.
Common treatments include psychoeducation, cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), mindfulness and acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT).
Some of the prominent diseases, where Dtxs is either getting used or under clinical trial include, type II diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease, dementia, congestive heart failure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, asthma, lung disease, obesity, substance abuse, ADHD, insomnia, hypertension anxiety, depression.
Some of the major companies, involved in Dtx, include Pear Therapeutics, Akili Interactive Labs, Hinge Health, Click Therapeutics, SilverCloud Health, Holmusk, Cerebral, Liva Healthcare, Sword Health, Sanity group, Kaia Health & Omada Health.
Hope you got more clarity on What is Digital therapeutics.
