Did you know that a survey conducted in 2020 revealed that more than 45 million adults in America had some form of mental health disorder, which stood at 20 percent of the population. Consequently, just imagine the untold number of others who may be suffering in secret, or who may be in a state of emergency in which they no longer know what to do.
However, in the day and age where people are busy and often stressed, mental breakdowns are fairly familiar. Stress may be caused by many aspects such as loneliness, financial difficulties, or being bombarded by negativity consistently. This is why it becomes paramount to have efficient crisis intervention.
This blog endeavors to identify new tools and methods that can greatly help in these critical situations. For the next section, we will discuss crisis intervention methods by mental health workers and competent sources to which people in the crisis state may turn to.
Understanding Mental Health Crisis Intervention
Crisis is defined here as a state of deterioration in one’s mental health, where the person is overwhelmed with extreme feelings and/or thoughts and is unable to effectively manage their life. This distress can be of any nature but most of the time it creates a condition where the person feels overwhelmed or incapable of handling their thought processes, feelings or actions. Common Scenarios Requiring Intervention:
- Suicidal Ideation: Ideas or intentions about ending one’s life, or about putting an end to the whole process, called suicide.
- Severe Panic Attacks: Episodes of fear, which is intense and includes symptoms such as shortness of breath; chest pain and dizziness; and episodes of fear so severe that one feels they are having a heart attack.
- Psychotic Episodes: Psychosis causes a break from reality; it can include seeing or hearing things that aren’t real or having fixed false beliefs.
- Other situations: These can include sudden outbursts of anger, aggressive self-infliction of pain, alcohol and/or drug binges, or pronounced withdrawal from people.
Goals of Crisis Intervention
The primary goals of crisis intervention are twofold:
Immediate Safety and Stabilization: This entails prevention of escalation of the crisis situation to a more dangerous level with an aim of protecting the client and those close to him. This may entail the elimination of risks and dangers, and restraining the patient from harming themself or others.
Long-Term Recovery and Prevention of Future Crises: When speaking of crisis intervention, one must realize that it is about moving on after the crisis as well. It also seeks to get people the necessary help in the case of the continuation of mental health issues, and build ways of handling other future challenges so that they do not lead to a relapse.
Prevention should always be a topic of significant discussion as it can be the most influential supporter and make a turn around for an individual’s life.
The Technology Integration in Crisis Intervention
There is a tremendous shift on how the mental health crisis intervention is practiced in the current society due to the influences from the technology.
Here’s a glimpse into how technology is revolutionizing crisis intervention:
AI Based Chatbots and Virtual Assistants
Crisis intervention is not spared as AI technologies such as the conversational agents like the chatbots and virtual assistants are causing a stir. It has an around the clock support to make sure help can always be sought. This is made possible by the use of AI chatbots as it helps to expel any stigma related to risks when seeking help. It is equally possible for an AI system to determine a user’s needs and suggest relevant support materials.
United We Care offers Stella, an AI chatbot that provides accessible mental health support. This tool can assess users’ mental well-being, offer tailored advice, and guide them to appropriate resources.
Mental Health Apps: Help On Your Hands
Applications related to mental health have been the future of such efforts. Users can be connected with experienced professionals for anonymous help now, and they don’t even have to leave the house. No appointments needed! These apps also allow people with the ability to self-advocate and help themselves in crisis situations with consecutive resources such as protection plan, and other resources such as options for meditation, breathing techniques, and keeping track of one’s moods.
United We Care’s app includes wellness programs, convenient scheduler for appointments, self-survey, and even an online community for people who share the same issues.
Telehealth as well as Virtual Crisis Intervention
Technology is making mental health help more accessible than ever, telehealth. The fact that clients can access therapists over the internet means that there are no geographical restrictions. Besides, being an attendee in sessions from home is also very advantageous especially with hectic schedules. Even the wait time is much shorter in telehealth service supporting more individuals in need of their services in their times of distress. For the patients who require repeated prescriptions, telehealth makes follow up appointments easy hence continuous treatment.
United We Care is taking telehealth a notch higher through a new Innovation called the Clinical Co-Pilot that incorporates AI in enhancing therapy. Co-Pilot is capable to assess patient records and suggest to the therapists whether there are any signs of problems and if the treatment ought to be modified. It also does things, perhaps enormously reducing the time which therapists spend doing bureaucratic work for the patients. All in all, Co-Pilot and telehealth are improving mental health and its treatment by accessibility, convenience, and satisfaction.
Conclusion
Crisis intervention is expected to grow in the future. Advanced categories such as VR and AR therapy are becoming more popular. VR could enable people to face their fears in simulated scenarios as a way of overcoming phobia while AR could wash a person’s environment with positive images and/ or sounds if they were to be used in real-life scenarios. Moreover, the enhancement of AI may also involve utilizing user data to perhaps forecast possible crises and begin intervention.
It is to be noted that the dynamics of offering crisis intervention are always changing and technology has also become a relatively recent prominent aspect. That is why the integration of those advancements can help us build a future where help is available for anyone in need.
