TELESHRINKS
You think you might be depressed and want to get some help. Trouble is, your rustic little hometown is 95 miles from the nearest shrink. And she's booked for weeks.
The solution? Telemedicine. It's a videoconferencing system that sends live images and sounds of patients over existing digital phone lines. That allows faraway experts to diagnose or offer second opinions, report Harvard psychologist Lee Baer, Ph.D., and colleagues m the American Journal of Psychiatry (Vol 152, No. 9l. In a pilot study, telepsychiatrists assessed patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder just as accurately as did in- person counterparts.
Baer says the system could be a boon to folks who have little access to mental health care, like the rural or urban poor. Already, telemedicine is being tested on a Native American reservation m Maine. And the system could become a fixture in nursing homes, or in Head Start programs, where teachers could consult off-site psychologists about kids with behavioral problems.
