Virtual Therapy Lab Presented at Expo 2020 and Arab Health 2022

  • 2022-01-24

Latvia’s pavilion at Expo 2020 has added a virtual therapy lab solution that will also be presented at the global health care exhibition Arab Health 2022.  This innovation is the work of the Adolescent and Youth Psychotherapy Centre and the Tietoevry information technology company.

Expo 2020 and Arab Health 2022 are taking place in Dubai. The presentation of the solution is part of a biomedicine trade mission that is being organised by the Latvian Investment and Development Agency.

The virtual therapy lab is the work of local and foreign psychotherapy and IT experts. The aim is to improve important emotional control skills among teenagers and young people. The innovation makes it possible to offer psychotherapeutic consultations in an expanded virtual reality environment. This makes use of next-generation technologies.

“Virtual reality can be used to expand and improve accustomed processes,”  says the director of the Latvian branch of Tietoevry, Valērija Vārna. “The patient and the specialist can be in different locations, and the evaluation and diagnostics can be deeper and more precise.  We live in a complicated era when it is enormously important to support the mental health of teens and young people, and so we hope that this solution will change people’s thinking about mental therapy methodologies.”

The first phase of the virtual therapy lab convinced experts that the innovative approach is effective if it is managed by specialists. The second phase is now underway in terms of clinical research. The results will be presented at the world’s largest personal psychodiagnostics conference in Chicago in the United States.

“We are at the start of an exciting road toward improving the well-being of young people all around the world,” says the director of the Adolescent and Youth Psychotherapy Centre, Nils Sakss Konstantinovs.  “This will bring positive changes to societies at large.  The virtual therapy laboratory has some elements which conform to the reality in which the therapy is being conducted. At the same time, however, the developmental process made it possible to determine the experience elements that can be improved by virtual therapy – making the room darker or lighter, or integrating various objects to successfully reflect the mood and needs of the patient’s visit.”

The world’s leading health care exhibition is taking pace in Dubai alongside Expo 2020.  Countries present their latest technological solutions, as well as innovation prototypes and services. More than 56,000 professionals from the sector visit this industry event.

The Arab Health 2022 exhibition in the United Arab Emirates will run from January 24-27.  Expo 2020 began on October 1, 2021, and will continue until March 31, 2022.