F010 and F011 How does VR treat PTSD, ADHD and addiction? Will it decrease drug expenditure?
Virtual reality has a long history. Its applications precede pure fun, by today, many therapies for medical purposes have been designed.
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The list is long: VR is used for acute and chronic pain, stroke and traumatic brain injury, drug and alcohol abuse, mild cognitive impairment, anger management, learning disabilities, neuro-cognitive disorders, PTSD, even grief counceling, to name only a few.
According to dr. Walter Greenleaf, behavioral neuroscientist and a medical technology developer working at Stanford University, interactive virtual environments significantly reduce pain from as much as 44% during the most painful procedures (ex: burn wound treatment), diverts patient attention away from perceiving and feeling pain, decreases pain-related brain-activity, reduces need for anaesthesia, opioid medication.
With the decrease in price, VR is getting mainstream. The technology giants such as Facebook and Samsung are making huge investments, according to Statista, 12,4 million units will be shipped worldwide in 2018, more than 5 times as much in 4 years in 2022.
How exactly does VR impact health and medical conditions?
Listen to Episode 10 and 11 (coming out on May 15th) of Faces of digital health.
The speaker in episode 10 is Psychologist dr. Albert “Skip” Rizzo, the Director of Medical Virtual Reality at the Institute for Creative Technologies at University of Southern California. Dr. Rizzo conducts research on the design, development and evaluation of virtual reality (VR) systems targeting the areas of clinical assessment, treatment rehabilitation and resilience. This work spans the domains of psychological, cognitive and motor functioning in both healthy and clinical populations. His work using virtual reality-based exposure therapy to treat PTSD received the American Psychological Association’s 2010 Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Treatment of Trauma.
Episode 11 features dr. Walter Greenleaf who is considered a leading authority in the medical VR field with over three decades of research and development experience in the field of digital medicine and medical virtual reality technology. As a research scientist, Dr. Greenleaf’s focus has been on age-related changes in cognition, mood, and behaviour. His early research was on age-related changes in the neuroendocrine system and the effects on human behaviour. As a medical technology developer, Dr. Greenleaf’s focus has been on computer supported clinical products, with a specific focus on virtual reality and digital health technology to treat Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Anxiety Disorders, Traumatic Brain Injury and Stroke, Addictions, Autism, and other difficult problems in behavioural and physical medicine.
Some questions addressed:
How does VR work for medical purposes?
How does VR differ from exposure therapy, is it more effective?
How do you treat ADHD or PTSD with VR?
What are the dangers of VR use on perception?
Will FDA regulate VR treatments? What danger do consumers currently face?