The use of virtual reality technology in the treatment of anxiety and other psychiatric disorders
By J. Maples-Keller, B. Bunnell, Sae-Jin Kim, B. Rothbaum. Harvard Review of Psychiatry, 2017
630 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Learning objectives After participating in this activity, learners should be better able to: • Evaluate the literature regarding the effectiveness of incorporating virtual reality (VR) in the treatment of psychiatric disorders • Assess the use of exposure-based intervention for anxiety disorders Abstract Virtual reality (VR) allows users to experience a sense of presence in a computer-generated, three-dimensional environment. Sensory information is delivered through a head-mounted display and specialized interface devices. These devices track head movements so that the movements and images change in a natural way with head motion, allowing for a sense of immersion. VR, which allows for controlled delivery of sensory stimulation via the therapist, is a convenient and cost-effective treatment. This review focuses on the available literature regarding the effectiveness of incorporating VR within the treatment of various psychiatric disorders, with particular attention to exposure-based intervention for anxiety disorders. A systematic literature search was conducted in order to identify studies implementing VR-based treatment for anxiety or other psychiatric disorders. This article reviews the history of the development of VR-based technology and its use within psychiatric treatment, the empirical evidence for VR-based treatment, and the benefits for using VR for psychiatric research and treatment. It also presents recommendations for how to incorporate VR into psychiatric care and discusses future directions for VR-based treatment and clinical research.
Subfields: Applied Psychology, Experimental and Cognitive Psychology, Psychiatry and Mental health
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/6258156445ec81e556a199ddc02c2c98f6553175
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In Applied Psychology
In Experimental and Cognitive Psychology
Citations in the corpus
- A Literature Overview of Virtual Reality (VR) in Treatment of Psychiatric Disorders: Recent Advances and Limitations (2019, background): “A new generation of realistic simulation can therefore (49).”
- Neuroscience of Virtual Reality: From Virtual Exposure to Embodied Medicine (2019, background): “In many articles, attention is focused on the high level of control and customization allowed by this technology.(1,2,9,10,87) VR allows the level of fit between the content of the exposure and the feared stimuli to be optimized.”