As the global COVID-19 epidemic continues, the Internet has proved to be a boon to many patients, including those with eating disorders. The number of online programs aimed at improving access to healthcare is rapidly expanding, and these programs are helping clinicians and patients overcome pandemic and other barriers. In this issue, we include a study by Dr. Julia Philipp and her colleagues in Vienna. The Austrian researchers examined two groups of parents receiving caregiver skills training in face-to-face workshops or online. There was no difference in outcome between the workshop and online groups.
The number of online tools is also increasing. Two online cognitive intervention assessment tools for parents of AN patients, CogTrack™, and SUCCEAT, measure attention, reasoning, information-processing, and working and episodic memory. The goal of the SUCCEAT intervention is to alleviate caregivers’ distress and burden, to enable them to help support their children with AN by helping them improve communication skills, and to achieve long-term changes for a healing atmosphere within their families.
The Internet offers increasingly helpful ways to enable ED patients and clinicians overcome distance, geography, and pandemic barriers to care.
– MS
