Skype therapy? It’s working for Veterans

Williams and Moreno Garcia meet once a week for an hour or so to discuss his progress in coping with post-traumatic stress disorder, the condition common to U.S. military personnel who served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Their sessions are over the Internet, using a firewall-protected connection and a different password for each session.

“Being in your own living room for sessions, that’s comfortable,” said Moreno Garcia, 31, who studied computers before enlisting in the Army.

Williams concedes she was somewhat suspect of the therapy-by-Internet method.

“I’ve been doing therapy face-to-face for 10 years, so I was skeptical,” Williams said. “But after one or two sessions, you forget about the camera.”

Dr. Nilesh Shah, director of telemedicine for the VA San Diego, is blunt about his assessment of the method, particularly in helping the growing number of VA patients that need long-term management for conditions such as PTSD, diabetes or obesity.

“It’s the future,” he said.