COVID-19 pushed many medical providers to go digital, pivoting to telemedicine to continue providing services to patients when close contact wasn’t safe. However, increased demand for certain medical services began to outstrip the supply of available medical professionals — like psychologists and therapists.
Many doctors began experimenting with AI-powered mental health chatbots to meet the needs of patients. Some experiments suggest that the technology could significantly improve health outcomes for people in need of psychotherapy.
Therapy Chatbot Helped Improve Mental Health of Patients Facing Delayed Surgeries
COVID-19 delayed a massive number of elective surgeries, like joint replacements. Patients awaiting these surgeries had to deal with additional weeks or months with limited mobility and often significant pain. As a result, their mental and physical health often started to decline. In the case of specific patient groups like veterans, those declines are often exacerbated by a lack of clarity when it comes to options for disability compensation, something that can be helped by using tools like the VA disability calculator 2023, which can assist in identifying support available.
A team of researchers developed a mobile phone messaging robot to provide a form of therapy called acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) over text. They did this to see if a chatbot could help improve patients’ mental health when psychotherapy staff were not available.
ACT is an action-oriented therapeutic approach that emphasizes acceptance of difficult emotions. It’s been demonstrated to improve the mental health of people with issues like chronic pain, a common issue for patients awaiting joint replacement surgery.
One of the chatbot’s messages read, “Now that your day is winding down, reflect on what motivated your actions throughout the day. Intrusive thoughts, emotional distress and pain may show up periodically during your day, but these thoughts and feelings do not need to direct the actions you take.”
The end of the message invited patients to text the chatbot for additional tips.
The team found that the messages had a significant positive impact on people’s mental and physical health compared to a control group that did not receive them.
The Past and Future of Mental Health Chatbots
The concept of psychotherapy chatbots is nothing new. In 1964, Joseph Weizenbaum, a computer researcher at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, developed a simple therapy chatbot called ELIZA that emulated the approach of a Rogerian psychotherapist.
The bot relied on an early and rudimentary form of natural language processing (NLP) — a computer algorithm that can analyze and write in English, ideally in a way that sounds human. However, because the technology was not advanced, ELIZA could only repeat certain stock phrases in reference to keywords entered by patients.
Newer chatbots leverage modern artificial intelligence (AI), which has allowed them to become more personal and responsive than ever. A growing number of mental health chatbots use this technology to offer personalized psychotherapy, rather than rote, responses to patients.
AI powers NLP to break down writing from patients more intelligently and respond with natural-sounding sentences. These algorithms are trained on a massive amount of language data, allowing them to “understand” and respond to a patient’s problems more effectively.
These robots also aren’t always intended to simulate the psychotherapy experience, unlike ELIZA or the ACT chatbot used to support patients awaiting joint replacement surgeries. Instead, they can also act like digital therapists’ aides — speaking to patients, providing information and taking notes on their condition. Once a therapist is available, they’ll have a good idea of who the patient is and what they may need.
Chatbots may not be able to meet the needs of people with complex issues, like PTSD or conditions that require psychiatric medication. However, they could provide support and gather information while patients wait for a therapist.
Similar chatbot technology may also be used in other medical applications. A digital nurse could gather information on a patient’s symptoms before a telemedicine visit. They could provide advice if someone needs guidance on whether they should visit an emergency room or their primary care provider.
Mental Health Chatbots May Use AI to Make Psychotherapy More Accessible
The COVID-19 pandemic has pushed medical professionals to experiment with telemedical offerings, but it’s also created significant new demand that medical services professionals can’t always meet. Chatbots may offer a valuable stopgap whenever psychotherapists are unavailable for patients needing mental health services.
Simple chatbots have been found to improve patients’ mental health, and more advanced models are being experimented with all the time. This technology could soon provide patients with an invaluable resource.
By Shannon Flynn, ReHack
