Virtual Iraq Helps Treat Post-Traumatic Stress
Virtual Iraq Helps Treat Post-Traumatic Stress
September 28, 2009
The Office of Naval Research is currently funding a program that uses videogames to treat post-traumatic stress in veterans of the armed forces.
Virtual Iraq, based on the title Full Spectrum Warrior, allows experiences to be tailored to each participant, so they can relive exactly what they went through, reports American Medical News. 3D goggles and a chair with feedback add further realism. So far, 20 participants have undergone treatment using Virtual Iraq with “positive results.” It’s thought that the familiarity of videogames helps lower resistance to being treated.
The article also notes that the United States Air Force is conducting a similar study with virtual reality treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas.
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Comments
uh, another example of how video game is helping people. They're using Full Warrior Spectrum, huh. How long till the air force use Ace Combat and HAWX as their training simulator.
Also, how long till the anti-military people decide to pull a protest claiming that this is a video game trying to get kid to join the army without no evidence?
The US army once trained people with Battlezone!
I also have to ask - how is reliving the event in a simulation good for the participant? Does it help them remember traumatic parts of the so they can more openly discuss it with psychotherapists or something?
I don't know much about psychology, but how exactly does reliving the thing that gave you PTSD in the first place supposed to help you?
That was my first thought, too. Unfortunately, the article doesn't give a lot of detail about how it's exactly helping these people. There are a couple of references to custom-tailoring the VR to one's individual XP, and how the subjects are more receptive to the video game approach compared to talk therapy, but no examples or real explanations.
"De minimus non curat lex"
By supposedly breaking down resistance to treatment by exposing the patient to the experience which caused their trauma. It's only one part of a more comprehensive treatment program.
So it's probably supplemented with talk therapy and some prescriptions as well, you think?
Damn!! GamePolitics put more spin on this story than a Venus Williams back-hand. The "positive results" obtained are from "preliminary testing" and, by admission of the Office of Naval Research, "more rigorous testing is needed to fully understand the advantages or disadvantages of using virtual reality as a treatment method."
For those of you wondering how experiencing it again helps, just think of all the psychological treatments for stressful/traumatic experiences that you've heard of. This is pretty much the same thing kids who experience a school shooting go through (albeit using technology). The kids will 'relive' their experience with the counselor in order to get all the emotion and stress out. From what I understand, the problems that come from these situations is when someone represses the experience and doesn't want to talk about it, keeping the emotions bottled up.
Well, that makes sense....
Though if it were me, and I got freaked out by lots of shooting and things blowing up, there's no freakin' way I'd want to sit in something that flooded my senses with the experience all over again.