“Their Antidote to Techno-Addictions Are Here in Las Praderas”

Society is a mosaic of interactions that engulfs modern mankind and launches in a spiral of dependence on electronic gadgets and social-media standards. However, there is a place west of Havana where specialists have come up with a specialized therapeutic community that helps overcome the addiction to technologies, a phenomenon associated with industrial development and with high incidence in the today's world.

La Pradera is the ideal place to receive patients and their families. A natural environment, barely a 20-minute drive from the city's downtown area, is just excellent for rediscovering the paths to a life project, to the expression of the individual and his aptitudes.

According the prestigious psychiatrist Dr. Ricardo González, the addiction to technologies isolates the social environment and thus prevents the development of the personality and the cognitive abilities necessary to make plans, enjoy social situations or feel empathy towards others. The repercussion of this pathology increases in the earliest ages when the maturation of the brain is still far from being completed.

The therapy combines group work with modern diagnostic means to rule out possible related causes or treat them in cases where the addiction to technologies is a response to some type of ailment. However, the basic philosophy behind the program is based on a close relationship among the medical team, the relatives and the patients.

All the expertise piled up over years of dedicated work in terms of treatments and rehabilitations, is placed in the creation of a customized program that seeks to pinpoint each and every patient's qualities and offer him the opportunity to develop those values. Dr. Nelly Cristina Valdivia Onega, head of the health center, admits the treatment can include equine therapy, creative activities or tours to the city's cultural and historic life.

In the same breath, for large families wishing to join the process, an alternative timetable can be included with transportation means and accommodation coordination services. This benefit -according to Dr. Valdivia- has been thought out for mothers with more than one child. While one gets the therapy, the other may know the capital, travel to the beaches and get involved in the processes as long as specialists see it fit.

Excelencias had the chance to take a closer look at this process when it visited the “La Pradera” International Health Center, a place that can be taken for a resort designed for a good rest. The facility boasts spacious apartments, butler service and specialized attention. The therapy can stretch out somewhere between 45 to 90 days, reevaluations are scheduled when necessary.

The team of specialists is ready to lay bare before the eyes of those who have limited their world to technoaddictions that they are important and that society needs their virtues and contributions.

THE “LA PRADERA” INTERNATIONAL HEALTH CLINIC OFFERS A NEW SERVICE TO OVERCOME ADDICTIONS UNRELATED TO SUBSTANCES,

BUT RATHER TO BEHAVIORS, INCLUDING ADDICTIONS TO TECHNOLOGY, SHOPPING SPREES OR FOOD, AMONG OTHERS