Mental Health

Equip Health: Guide to Virtual Eating Disorder Treatment

Equip Health

What Equip Health is in Reality

Equip Health started off with a very simple mission, to make evidence-based treatment of eating disorders accessible to anyone with internet access. They do not qualify as a therapy app or a referral service. Rather, Equip designs an exclusive board of licensed specialists in eating disorders and places them to work with you and your family only during the treatment.
The site manages all the significant eating disorders, such as anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, binge eating disorder, ARFID, and other specified feeding or eating disorders. They deal with adolescents, young adults and adults but their most powerful asset is teenagers and young adults whose family involvement is most significant.
The difference with Equip is that they believe in Family-Based Treatment that has decades of research to support it. Equip does not leave the individual with the eating disorder alone in the recovery effort; rather, he engages the entire family in the recovery effort as team players and not as mere onlookers.

How to treat an eating disorder virtual Equip Health

Seeking assistance to an eating disorder should not be hard. But over years families have been grappling with locating specialized therapists, scheduling appointments with different therapists and schedules that are hectic. Conventional treatment of eating disorders tended to put you out of business before you began.
Equip Health is transforming this fact. You do not need to drive to various offices every week, but it all occurs in your living room. Your complete treatment team is virtually linked with you, and they all work as a unified entity. This is the guide that will help you get acquainted with all the details that surround the virtual treatment of eating disorders by the Equip Health.

How Virtual Treatment Works

The therapy occurs via safe video calls all the time. Majority of individuals begin with a number of sessions weekly- you may visit your therapist/ dietitian two or three times a week, other providers on a regular basis. This severity reacts to the severity of eating disorders and offers the assistance required in recovery. It is even more natural than it sounds, sessions. You get in at the time you are supposed to work and your provider seems to be on the job. The therapy meetings may include current week problem-related talks or anxiety management skill training.

The real-time support is frequently done during dietitian sessions that occur around meal times. Parents are present most of the time, particularly at the beginning of treatment. Family-Based Treatment means that your parents have to be coached to help you to recover at home, and they cannot do a good job of it without knowing what is going on in the treatment. The frequency of the sessions also reduces as you develop and the symptoms fade. The length of treatment varies – some individuals take the program in six months, but others require one year or more. Equip does not hurry you out on some arbitrary schedules.

Four Nurses, One Patient

Equip offers 5 specialized providers and they all make frequent contact with you regarding your progress. Your therapist is a leader of the team, who coordinates the general treatment plan and coordinates psychological recovery elements. The dietician registered addresses nutrition, and assists in regaining normal eating habits and reestablishing healthy relationship with food.
Your healthcare provider keeps watch over the health complications that affect the body physically, monitors vital signs, and makes sure that the body is recovering safely. The peer mentor is a special person, one that has experienced eating disorder recovery herself, and is able to offer evidence that recovery can be achieved. And lastly, there is a family mentor who assists the parents in their emotional struggles and the acquisition of practical skills.
Your case is regularly discussed by all five team members who make changes to the strategies. You are not organizing your care, they do it on your behalf.

Getting Started and Costs

It is simple to start at Equip. All you do is complete a form on their site and their admissions team calls you within a day or two to talk about your case. In this call they determine the suitability of their program to your needs and also confirm insurance cover.
To the out of pocket payers, the amounts are in thousands of dollars per month considering the intensity of the program. This can be compared to the cost of traditional outpatient eating disorder treatment and it is the equivalent of paying a team of specialized providers to meet with you on a number of occasions each week.

Who Benefits Most

Equip is also effective among adolescents and young adults when the family members can actively engage in the treatment. The model relies on the availability and willingness of caregivers to contribute towards recovery in the home.
Independent young adults can also become successful but treatment is adapted. Adults also get such benefits, the family aspect being tailored to suit the situation of adult life.
Not only do you require medical stability to be able to receive care on an outpatient level, but it is possible that you are also experiencing severe issues with the symptoms of an eating disorder. It does not matter about geography as all processes are conducted in the virtual world as you may live in the countryside or in the metropolis, you receive the same quality of care.
Equip does not fit well with medically unstable, chronically suicidal, or too medically unstable to receive outpatient care. During admissions, they will be candid in determining if you require high-level care before.

Reality of Benefits and Take into Account

One of the barriers is eradicated by virtual treatment. The most obvious is accessibility, which means that you can get expert care no matter where you are in residence. Convenience factor is so important in case of having a number of appointments in a week. Treatment at home also offers distinct opportunities to treatment, which allow providers to observe and teach in real situations as they happen.
Nevertheless, virtual care has some limitations that should be considered. The dependency of technologies is also problematic when your internet connection is not good or you do not have personal space to take the sessions. There are individuals who just get along well in person. There are limitations to medical monitoring, you cannot be physically examined by the providers. Virtual providers are less able to intervene in the situation in case of crisis.
The Family-Based Treatment approach in itself does not apply to all people. Certain family dynamics are too strife-ridden that this model is not likely to work effectively without substantial healing at first.

Moving Forward

Equip Health is truly unique as a form of eating disorder treatment, where the care is coordinated, intensive, and family-based, using technology. It has made or broken the difference between getting real treatment and remaining in struggle with inadequate assistance to many of the families. In case you think about equip, contact them to have a preliminary consultation. Their admissions team is able to be truthful with you regarding whether their program suits you and respond to certain questions. Healing an eating disorder is not easy, no matter the method, but with the right support system, that process is not impossible as it may end up being.

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About Dr. Soyab Ahmed

Hello, I'm Dr. Soyab. I studied at (Stanford University school of medicine with ACCME). I'm from India, where yoga started. I know about old Indian ways to heal. I learned how people used to live long, healthy lives. I studied Ayurveda medicine in school. I like to share tips for living healthy in natural ways. I mix old ideas with new ones about health. I can help with many health problems using Ayurveda and yoga. I teach how to use these old ways in today's life.

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