[agents] SI on Intersession Management and Remote Therapeutic Intervention Support

[ruediger.pryss at uni-ulm.de]

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                              CALL FOR PAPERS
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       Intersession Management and Remote Therapeutic Intervention Support

      
http://www.mdpi.com/journal/J/special_issues/remote_therapeutic_intervention

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                		Deadline for manuscript submissions:
			25 February 2019
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Many studies have confirmed that therapeutic interventions constitute a
fundamental part of most therapies as they increase their efficacy. The
variety of therapeutic interventions, in turn, ranges from simple medication
intakes up to complex behavioral therapies including homework, which is
assigned by a therapist to the patient. In particular, homework supports
therapeutic progress and helps to transfer therapeutic achievements from
the clinical setting to the real-life situation of the patient at home.
Taking this diversity into account, many therapists crave for a more
sophisticated IT support. In line with this trend, recent studies revealed
that (1) utilizing smart mobile devices are demanded by therapists and (2)
that they can be used to obtain new insights in clinical research. However,
existing approaches still come with several drawbacks. First, they mainly
provide specifically tailored applications and often do not cope with the
diversity of therapeutic interventions. Second, they neither consider the
execution context of homework properly nor the provision of feedback. Third,
existing solutions focus on the therapist-patient relationship and, therefore,
neglect emerging opportunities (e.g., context-sensitive data) in this context.
Fourth, features provided by current smart mobile devices (e.g., sensors) have
seldomly been used for therapeutic interventions. More generally, the  
development
of information systems, which support homework in the context of therapeutic
interventions and intersession management has not been sufficiently addressed
so far. When realizing information systems that integrate, for example, smart
mobile devices, the common procedure of therapeutic interventions in general
and homework in particular must be carefully captured by the system.  
Therefore,
relevant requirements must be elicited in real-world projects. Based on such
requirements, new IT platform approaches enabling therapists to manage  
therapeutic
interventions remotely can be designed and realized. Using such platforms,
homework can be created, for example, with a web-based component and  
be performed
by patients with the help of, for example, smart mobile devices.  
Moreover, beyond
the technical issues when capturing remote therapeutic interventions  
and intersession
management digitally, many interdisciplinary questions arise, which need to be
addressed. For example, what about ethical aspects, privacy issues, or  
evolving
demands of therapists.  Therefore, the aim of this special issue is  
the investigation
of challenges, opportunities, and new questions when addressing  
intersession management
and remote therapeutic interventions by adding IT-support to these  
environments. To
be more precise, the following research questions, inter alia, shall  
be addressed by
this Special Issue:

-What are the drawbacks and limitations of IT-supported therapeutic  
interventions?
-What means sensor usage in this context?
-Can we derive new insights into the performance of intersession  
management and remote therapeutic interventions?
-What are the general risks of IT-support in this context?
-What means context-awareness in this environment?
-What constitutes a suitable IT-support in this context?
-Which new medical issues arise?
-Which new psychological issues arise?
-What are the demands of therapists?
-What are the demands of patients?
-What about legal and ethical aspects in this context?
-What means feedback in this context?
-What means data quality in this context?
-What are the core features of a comprehensive IT-supported  
intersession management?

This Special Issue aims to provide a comprehensive overview of new  
approaches and disruptive
ideas for an IT-Support of intersession management and remote  
therapeutic interventions. We
invite research articles that will consolidate our understanding of  
the state-of-the-art in
this area. The Special Issue will publish full research, review, and  
highly rated manuscripts
addressing the above issues, including any of the topics mentioned in  
the keywords listed here:
http://www.mdpi.com/journal/J/special_issues/remote_therapeutic_intervention

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About MDPI J
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J (ISSN 2571-8800) is an international, peer-reviewed,  
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Important Dates
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Deadline for manuscript submissions:
25 February 2019

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Submission Guidelines
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Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and
logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the
submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All papers
will be peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the
journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue
website. Research articles, review articles as well as short  
communications are
invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can
be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under
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international peer-reviewed open access quarterly journal published by MDPI.

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Guest Associate Editors
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*Rüdiger Pryss, Ulm University, Germany
*Winfried Schlee, University Hospital of Regensburg, Germany
*Harald Baumeister, Ulm University, Germany
*Patrick Neff, University Hospital of Regensburg, Germany
*Thomas Probst, Danube University Krems, Austria