While most of the hype surrounding VR has focused on games and entertainment, virtual reality in its latest guise poses a number of practical possibilities within clinical settings. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, an estimated 43.6 million adults in the United States alone have a diagnosable mental disorder, giving VR the scope to help a lot of its potential users.
VR will be more than just a video game peripheral in the future.
Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy has been around for more than 20 years, but technological limitations and cost have prevented it from becoming widely available. That said, the advent of affordable mobile headsets means there are new opportunities to decentralize mental health treatment, and for it in turn to reach the masses. The current lack of clinical data, and how developers go about creating medically reliable experiences moving forward, will undoubtedly prove to be VR’s biggest challenge from a health perspective, though more and more studies are coming to light.
Nine patients reported reduced symptoms of depression.
Earlier this year, for example, University College London and the Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies published an academic paper that suggested VR therapy could reduce depressive symptoms by boosting feelings of self-compassion. In three weekly, 8-minute sessions, the pilot study examined 15 adults with depression, aged between 23 and 61, who used virtual reality headsets to see from the perspective of a life-sized avatar. The process of "embodiment" — where the human brain is tricked into believing what it’s seeing is in fact under its own control — was the focus. In the VR session, patients were asked to express compassion towards a distressed child.
Once successfully calming the infant, the patients then embodied the child itself and were made to listen to the adult avatar repeating their previously recorded compassion back to them. One month later, nine patients reported reduced symptoms of depression, while four experienced “a clinically significant drop in depression severity” as a result of the therapy. Some patients even said they were less self-critical in real-life situations afterwards.
Now, 15 people is by no means a large sample, and, as this particular study operated without a control group, its findings are still very preliminary. Nevertheless, self-criticism is often a central tenet of depression; with that in mind, this study does offer hope for future VR therapy-related research.
PTSD affects 7.7 million people in the US per year.
Other studies have shown that VR exposure therapy can help with a whole host of different conditions, including phobias, social anxiety, and, perhaps the most well-documented, post-traumatic stress disorder.
Although widely associated with military personnel and war veterans, many more people suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of tragic experiences such as rape and assault. According to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, PTSD affects an estimated 7.7 million people in the US per year. While many of these cases go sadly unreported, companies like Beyond Care hopes to target all demographics with its range of VR software PTSD therapies.
The company’s primary initiative is based on the principle of eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing (or EMDR minus the tongue-twisting), and asks patients to recall a traumatic memory, before having them follow an object with their eyes. By occupying the brain with two tasks, the idea is that eye movement overtakes working memory, in turn causing the traumatic memory to become less vivid. In time, repeating the process is said to prevent the bad memory from triggering such an emotional response.
Following a successful pilot study, Beyond Care is now in the process of organising a trial in partnership with a Dutch University and a company who specialises in psychological treatment. These studies are in the earliest of stages, but the results could determine if VR desensitisation and reprocessing therapy — currently know as Beyond Care PTSD — actually works, and whether or not it can be successfully delivered virtually, under the remote supervision of a therapist.
As for military service-influenced PTSD, Dr. Albert “Skip” Rizzo’s Bravemind began life as a total conversion mod for the 2004 war game Full Spectrum Warrior. It’s been iterated many times since, and in 2014, the Canadian government purchased the latest version — which includes a vibrotactile platform, and a scent machine that simulates diesel fuel, garbage, and gunpowder — for $17,000 each.
Again, for VR to successfully treat the likes of depression and anxiety, it’ll need the appropriate medical backing. But the leaps and bounds the technology is already making suggests that virtual reality will be far more than just a video game peripheral in the future — it could just make a significant impact on the world of therapy.
How have video games helped you through hard times? Share your stories with us in the comments below!
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