The advent of technology has enabled researchers to discover new ways to treat health complications. As a result, we are coming across new treatment methods for chronic illness from time to time.
In recent years, a new class of medicine, digital therapeutics (DTx), has gained acceptance among healthcare professionals.
There is a surging prevalence of chronic conditions globally. Consequently, the expenditure on medical treatment is rising, putting a huge strain on payers. Also, there are some unmet needs in the health care field.
Digital therapeutics offer a novel means of treatment for a growing number of patients with chronic illness while keeping the treatment cost low. As a result, more and more patients and health care providers are adopting DTx. This simply means that the digital therapeutics market will grow in the future.
In fact, the global digital therapeutics market is expected to reach 7.8 billion by 2025.
What Are Digital Therapeutics?
Put simply, digital therapeutics are therapies via software applications to complement or replace the existing treatment of diseases.
According to the Digital Therapeutics Alliance, a global non-profit trade association of industry leaders and stakeholders engaged in the evidence-driven advancement of digital therapeutics,
“Digital therapeutics (DTx) deliver evidence-based therapeutic interventions to patients that are driven by high quality software programs to prevent, manage, or treat a medical disorder or disease. They are used independently or together with medications, devices, or other therapies to optimize patient care and health outcomes.”
The Benefits
Digital therapeutics offer meaningful benefits for all stakeholders. Patients, caregivers, healthcare providers, and payers, all of them, can benefit from evidence-based digital therapeutics.
Here are some common benefits of DTx for all stakeholders:
- Patients and caregivers access to evidence-based treatment
- Patients receive personalized care according to their schedules
- Remove the stigma associated with certain kinds of treatment
- Health care providers can prescribe DTx alone or along with other therapy to optimize patient care
- Health care provider access to novel treatment options for chronic conditions that previously have been untreated or underrated by traditional therapies
- Payers have decreased economic burden of medical conditions
Also, DTx can reduce reliance on certain medications that can cause severe side-effects in the long run.
Digital Therapeutics Trends
According to research, virtual reality (VR) has been found to be effective in clinical settings to reduce levels of pain, and general distress/unpleasantness.
What’s more, smart-phone applications utilizing biofeedback can aid stress reduction.
Also, a study suggests that video games expand the brain’s cognitive ability. This is because video games may help build key skills, including working memory, executive functioning, and selective attention.
The Israeli tech firm, VRHealth, is working toward finding ways to use virtual reality in pain management, physical and cognitive therapy and other areas.
The US Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) cleared mobile application reSET-O to help those with opioid use disorder.
Furthermore, the USFDA approved the use of Exablate Neuro for the treatment of tremor-dominant Parkinson’s disease.
Emerging research and cutting-edge therapies indicate promising use of digital therapeutics for digital diagnosis and treatment.
So the digital therapeutics market is going to expand in the future.
Do you want to understand digital therapeutics more? Have a look at the infographic below.
Source: Nursing School Hub
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