Technology and Mental Health: How to Use AI for Depression Treatment

Depression is one of the most commonly diagnosed mental health problems. Even then, it’s not properly treated in the majority of patients suffering from it. 

According to a report, only 63% of adults and 40% of teens get the treatment after a depressing event takes place in their lives. 

That said, one of the major causes of not coping with depression is the lack of counseling. Patients don’t even know that depression is a disorder and that it has proper treatment plans in place to deal with it. 

That’s where technology comes into play. Over the past years, tech has been integrated into various treatment practices to diagnose and fight off depression and other mental health concerns. 

Here are a few ways technology, or AI to be specific, helps in the treatment of mental health problems. 

Promoting treatment with high accessibility tools

Most depressed individuals are afraid to share their mental state with others. That’s one of the biggest causes depression stays anonymous in the first place. 

Normally, a depressed patient would have to find someone to talk to, then explain their matter to them, which in many cases could be a private/personal concern. With all those hurdles, the patient may prefer not even discussing the matter with others and dealing with it alone. 

Modern AI-based tools are readily available on the internet. Due to their high accessibility, patients can find and work on a treatment plan without even leaving the comfort of their homes. 

Enabling privacy and secrecy in sensitive matters

Many depressed individuals don’t share their mental state with a doctor or psychologist because it will diminish their private matters. You see, traumatic events are often linked to one’s personal life and people don’t feel comfortable sharing their identity, as well as the depressing events that happened to them with an outsider. 

However, through AI-based counseling tools, you don’t have to share your details with a human anymore. The AI chatbots will talk to you, calculate your case, and designate a therapy for you. Furthermore, when human intervention is needed, users can hide their identity to ensure privacy and secrecy. Simply put, you can share the traumatic events that haunt you, without sharing who you are. 

Providing the right information through mental health articles

To win a fight against mental health disorders, you have to make sure you’re well aware of what you’re dealing with in the first place. You have to know all the basics of mental health issues and ways to cope with them. 

To get that knowledge, you can now read informative articles and blogs on the internet. Such blogs are written by freelance medical writers in collaboration with various AI-based tools that help them streamline the researching and writing process. 

Reading such articles will give you the right pieces of information to successfully deal with whatever you’re going through. 

Better therapies due to science-backed studies

AI and machine learning have enabled us to do extensive research in various fields and industries, and mental health is no different. With the power of AI and other advanced technologies, science has been able to understand the psychology behind mental health disorders better. 

Due to this better understanding, the techniques used by psychologists to deal with mental health disorders are more optimized now. 

How AI Lets Clinicians Accurately Diagnose Mental Health

Identification of mentally ill individuals

As you know at this point, mentally ill people find it hard to converse their problems with others. The majority of suicides and other extreme acts of mental health problems occur because authorities aren’t able to find the victims on time. 

But today, many online platforms are intelligently able to tell whether a person is suffering from mental health issues. After identification, the platform can inform the authorities if a user is on the brink of taking a devastating step. 

Final thoughts

AI and ML have revolutionized almost all the areas of human health, and mental health is no exception. With the modern tools and techniques available today, it’s easier than ever to identify victims of mental health disorders, understand their cases better, and treat them with anonymity.

This article talks about 5 ways technology has contributed to the treatment of mental illness.