Virtual Reality

In
Psychiatry and Psychology

Malineni Lakshmaih Engineering College

singarayakonda

PRESENTED BY:
NIKHIL KUMAR V.V.N K.RAMESH
III/IV B.TECH IT III/IV B.TECHIT
05851A1227 05851A1233
E.Mail:Nikhil_1227 @yahoo.com
Cell: 9885036820 Cell:9849293068
CONTENTS:

Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy

Post-traumatic Stress Disorder Treatment

Fear of Flight Phobia Treatment

Arachnophobia Treatment

Acrophobia Treatment

Treatment for Burn Pain

Treatment of Eating Disorders

VR Medical Support System for Cancer Patients

ABSTRACT: Virtual Reality Exposure

In this, Psychiatric Services introduces Therapy.

a new quarterly column that will highlight and
• exposure of the patient to a virtual
explore the role of VIRTUAL REALITY in
environment containing the feared
the development and application of
stimulus in place of taking the patient
psychiatric services to a spectrum of
into a real environment or having the
populations in a variety of therapeutic
patient imagine the stimulus
settings. Far from being technologically
oriented, the column's goal is to provide
information on the very human and healing
effects that modern information technology
can achieve when creative and novel methods
are used to enhance research, clinical practice,
and training in our biopsychosocial field. This
initial column highlights these goals by
examining current and rapidly developing
research on and clinical applications of virtual
reality technology.
ADVANTAGES OF VR
EXPOSURE THERAPY:

1. Cost Effective
 • many stimuli for exposure are difficult from an open field) a combat
to arrange or control, and when helicopter over various Vietnam
exposure is conducted outside of the terrain like rice paddies, river, jungle
therapist's office, it becomes more
expensive in terms of time and money

2. Telemedicine Applications

• virtual reality exposure therapy is

appropriate for networked delivery of
clinical psychology and psychiatry
services to remote locations
• additionally users can walk through a
• Since the patient is receiving therapy hostile helicopter landing zone
within a virtual environment, the
clinician conducting the therapy
session could be present physically or
participate via computer networks
from a remote location.

Post-traumatic Stress Disorder

Treatment
• immersion of a person in a synthetic
Virtual Vietnam: world incorporates audio effects
o effects utilize Hollywood
• created to treat Vietnam veterans
audio production libraries to
suffering from post traumatic stress
create a high intensity
disorder
soundscape highlighted by
• currently under evaluation by
powerful bass explosions and
psychotherapists at the Atlanta
three dimensional gunfire
Veterans Administration hospital
effects
• users wear a virtual reality helmet and
ride (including landing and taking off
 o while riding in the Huey o sitting in the plane with
helicopter, the user is seated in engines off or on
a special chair (Thunderseat) o taxiing the runway
with a 100 watt subwoofer o smooth or rough takeoff
speaker incorporated into its o smooth or turbulent flight
base providing helicopter o close pass over the airport
vibration and explosion shock o smooth or rough landing
effects
• while patients took virtual trip, a
counselor talked to them, helping
them overcome their fears

• low cost system is currently being sold

and marketed to practicing
psychotherapists

Fear of Flying Phobia Treatment

• PC based virtual reality system for

treating individuals suffering from a
fear of flying
• patients wear a head mounted display
and are immersed into a virtual 3-D
world
• virtual airplane Arachnophobia Treatment
o duplicated a passenger seated
by the window in a standard • exposure desensitization treatment

commercial jet o proved effective for a wide

• during virtual exposure subject goes range of phobias, including

through various scenarios: spider phobia

 o gradually and systematically o patient is sometimes
exposing the phobic person to encouraged to pick up the
the feared object or situation, virtual spider web with her
and calming them little by little cyber hand and place it in
their fear decreases and they orientations that were most
become more comfortable with anxiety provoking
spiders. o experimenter controls the
• advantage of VR over other phobia spider's movements
treatment techniques:  by physically moving a
o greater freedom of the patient position sensor
or therapist to control the  by entering new
feared stimulus position coordinates
o unlike a real spider, virtual into the keyboard
spiders obey computer  by using pre-
commands, can be placed in programmed spider
various positions and behaviors (unexpected
orientations by patient or jumps, etc.)
therapist, and can be touched o spiders were placed in a
without danger cupboard with a web, were
o VR allows the experimenter to made to jump unpredictably
control how frightening the upon being touched, climbed
spiders appear or dropped in incremental
jumps between the ceiling and
the virtual kitchen floor
o spiders were touched, held and
manipulated by the subject
o patient could pull the spiders
legs off
o a large brown virtual spider
• VR therapy at the HITLab: with photograph quality
texture-mapped fur, and a
 smaller black spider and an
associated 3-D web were
employed

• subject started in the least treatening

situation and then progressed under
his own control
• they stop at the floor where they feel
 during the course of unable to continue
therapy the patient • results
could also squash the
o shown to be very effective in
virtual spiders with a
reducing acrophobic subjects
mixed reality ping pong
anxiety and avoidance of
paddle
heights, and in improving
o results
attitudes toward heights.
 dramatic reduction in
the patient's fear Acrophobia treatment at the

Acrophobia Treatment University of Michigan

• a realistic simulation of the elevator

Acrophobia treatment at Georgia
• requirements of emotional and
Tech
architectural realism

• fear of height treatment via Virtual o emotional realism was

Reality exposure to three virtual necessary to evoke the fear of

height situations: heights in acrophobes

1. elevator o architectural realism for

2. series of bridges controlled studies (comparing

3. series of balconies it to the real environment)

 o created by Paradigm
Simulations specifically for
burn victims
o patients fly through an icy
canyon with a river and frigid
waterfall
o patients shoot snowballs at
snowmen and igloos (with
animated impacts)
• virtual environment is realised by o since patients often report
CAVE reliving their original burn
o a projection device where a experience during wound care,
person stands in a 10x10x10 Snow World was designed to
foot room made of projection help put out the fire
screens
o subject wears shutter glasses to Why VR reduces pain:
create a three dimensional
image, and a computer • pain perception is largely

calculates what should be on psychological

each wall, based on the virtual o same incoming pain signal can

model and the location and be interpreted as painful or not,

viewpoint of the subject depending on what the patient

is thinking
Virtual Reality Treatment for o pain requires conscious

Burn Pain attention

• essence of VR is the illusion of going
• VR is used as non-pharmacological inside the computer generated
analgesia to help get burn pain down environment
to a more manageable level during o being drawn into another
wound care (i.e., distraction) by world drains a lot of attention
patient immersion into virtual world resources, leaving less
• Snow World
 attention available to process 1. Influencing patients' feelings of
pain signals dissatisfaction with different parts of their
o rather than having pain as the bodies by means of individual interviews,
focus of their attention, for relaxation and imaginal techniques
many patients in VR, the
wound care becomes more of • visual-motorial

an annoyance, distracting them

use of video recordings of particular gestures
from their primary goal of
and movements with the aim of influencing
exploring the virtual world
the level of bodily awareness

Virtual Reality in Eating

Disorders • The virtual environment VEBIM
• method of guided imagery - therapist,
Virtual Environment for Body after introducing a selected image,
Image Modification encourages the patient to associate to
(VEBIM): it in pictures, rather than in word, and
to give a detailed description of them
• integrates the two methods commonly • 6-zone virtual environment developed
used in the treatment of body using the Sense 8 World Toolkit for
experience disturbances within a Windows consisting of two parts:
virtual environment
• zones 1-2

• cognitive-behavioral
 • designed both to give the subject a o the purpose of this application
minimum level of skill in perceiving, is to improve these
moving through and manipulating psychooncological problems
objects in VR, and to focus attention by VR technology
on eating and food choice o in the virtual space patients can
feel as if they are present in the
nature outside of the hospital
even when they lay down on
the bed and see a picture of the
scenery in nature produced by
VR
o relaxation sound also can be
• zones 3-4-5-6 chosen whenever they want
• designed to modify the body • future plans - use of VR for prevention
experience of the subject of memorization of nausea by a first
chemotherapy
• hardware
o HMD and 3D projector as an
observation system
o stylus (fastrak) as pointing
device in the virtual space
o SGI Onyx
Virtual Reality Medical Support
System for Cancer Patients

• PsychoOncological VR Treatment
(POVRT)
o the cancer patients sometime
complaint insomnia and unrest
especially when they are
CONCLUSION:
treated by chemotherapy
 Just as simulators are now diagnostic peritoneal lavage, Alan liu,
standard in the fields of aviation and Christoph Kaufmann, Thomas Ritchie,
aerospace, soon surgical simulators will Medicine meets Virtual reality, 2001.
be standard in the medical field. These
simulators will allow instruction of
correct surgical technique without the
need for live patients. With the advent of
virtual reality, surgeons get the
opportunity to learn and practise the
skills of their trade. It is a tool that has
many potential applications. I predict
that, as technology continues to advance
and the cost of manufacturing decreases,
virtual reality will become a dominant
tool for training future surgeons.

REFERENCES:

1. A tutorial on Surgical simulation:

Past, Present and future; Medicine
meets virtual reality (MMVR) journal,
January 24, 2002.
2. Medical simulation for Surgical
training; Medical image computing and
computer- Assisted intervention
(MICCAI) journal, October 14, 2001.
3. A computer-based simulator for