The registration is now open for our study investigating the feasibility of internet-delivered prolonged exposure for patients with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Psychological treatments, commonly using trauma focused cognitive-behavioral techniques, like prolonged exposure (PE) are today recommended as first-line treatments for PTSD. Unfortunately, this treatment is not available to everyone who needs it. Therefore, we are investigating the feasibility of internet-delivered prolonged exposure for patients with PTSD.
Maria Bragesjö has been appointed one of the experts in the Red Cross University advisory committee, a committee with the mission to contribute with external monitoring, expertis and a critical eye at the Red Cross research projects.
She also just received 350 000 kr from Region Stockholm Innovation fund for the development of an internet-delivered CBT treatment for PTSD.
About the project The overall purpose is to increase accessibility to evidence based treatment for PTSD. The current project is a pilot study is planned to contain n=35 to evaluate the feasibility, acceptability, safety and preliminary treatment effects of the intervention.
There is prejudice that internet-mediated treatment would not be possible to give traumatized individuals, but there is research that it is a safe and effective way to give treatment. In earlier research, Maria and others have shown that this type of intervention is effective and acceptable for newly traumatized patients. In the current study, this intervention has developed to fit patients with PTSD.
If the treatment proves to be effective and acceptable, it would increase the health care’s ability to offer evidence treatment to a large group of patients that today are missing out.
Photo: Micke Sandström
Maria is a Lic. psychologist, PhD, Lic. psychotherapist and a Specialist in clinical psychology. Her research focuses on trauma and PTSD, specifically on early interventions for potentially traumatic events and different ways to effectively treat PTSD and complex PTSD.
The aim of this study was to evaluate the long-term effectiveness of internet-based cognitive behavioral therapy on self-reported symptoms of anxiety and depression in patients 12 months after a myocardial infarction and to explore subsequent occurrences of cardiovascular disease events. Shortly after acute myocardial infarction, 239 patients reporting mild-to-moderate symptoms of anxiety or depression were randomized to 14 weeks of therapist-guided internet-based cognitive behavioral therapy (n=117) or treatment as usual (n=122).
The study’s conclusions was that internet-based cognitive behavioral therapy was not superior in reducing self-reported symptoms of depression or anxiety compared to treatment as usual at the 1-year follow-up after myocardial infarction. A reduction in cardiac-related anxiety was observed but was not significant after adjusting for multiple comparisons. There was no difference in risk of cardiovascular events between the treatment groups. Low treatment adherence, which might have affected treatment engagement and outcomes, should be considered when interpreting these results.
The cause of cognitive dedifferentiation has been suggested as specific to late-life abnormal cognitive decline rather than a general feature of aging. This hypothesis was tested in two large cohorts with different characteristics. The subjects came from two research databases in North America and Sweden. Dedifferentiation was explained by cognitive impairment when controlling for age, sex, and education. This finding replicated across two separate, large cohorts of older individuals. Knowledge that the structure of human cognition becomes less diversified and more dependent on general intelligence as a function of cognitive impairment should inform clinical assessment and care for these patients as their neurodegeneration progresses.
Rücklab - Psychiatry research at Karolinska Institutet 