Therapists explore virtual reality to help patients


Therapists explore virtual reality to help patients

By David Nath March 15, 2019

It seems like virtual reality is everywhere these days - even the doctor's office!

The technology behind V.R. can put you in the world of fantasy, space, or even the post-apocalypse if you want. But now a group of therapists is proving the imaginary spaces don't have to be gaming related - and the technology has more potential to heal than previously thought.

Researchers at the University of Colorado, Boulder are now using immersive virtual reality technology to help those who suffer from anxiety, depression, and irrational fears, by placing the user into the situations that cause their moods, or fears, to flare up.

Monica Ng is the Director of Counseling and Psychiatric Services at the University. She compares V.R. therapy to some forms of cognitive behavioral therapy. focusing on challenging and changing what she calls unhelpful thoughts and behaviors, and improving the development of coping strategies specifically geared toward solving problems in their lives.

The difference is that V.R. therapy allows the patient to work on those problem-solving skills in a safe space. "Sometimes when you are feeling exposure you don't have access to the things in the real world that allows them to move through their fears," Ng explains, "and so the V-R program really allows you to do that."

The developers say they're hoping to roll it out at other schools, and as virtual reality becomes more widespread and accessible, it could eventually become part of a new standard set of protocols when it comes to treating depression and anxiety.

But they also caution that V.R. isn't for everyone. One of the big drawbacks is a type of motion sickness that happens when a user's eyes tell their brain they're moving around in an environment, but the body isn't actually moving. This motion sickness can be exacerbated by anti-anxiety medication, so for now, the therapists behind the new program are taking it slow. But one thing is clear: virtual reality isn’t just for gaming anymore.

https://www.foxnews.com/tech/therapists-explore-virtual-reality-to-help-patients

Comments

  1. Virtual Reality Shopping - Centaur Interactive,September 5, 2019 at 3:16 AM

    Good meaningful information... Virtual reality has many advantages that can give transformation among the businesses or anything could be.
    Virtual Reality Shopping
    VR architecture

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Report: World’s 1st remote brain surgery via 5G network performed in China

World’s 1st remote brain surgery via 5G network performed in China Published time: 17 Mar, 2019 13:12 ·           A Chinese surgeon has performed the world’s first remote brain surgery using 5G technology, with the patient 3,000km away from the operating doctor. Dr. Ling Zhipei remotely implanted a neurostimulator into his patient’s brain on Saturday, Chinese state-run media  reports . The surgeon manipulated the instruments in the Beijing-based PLAGH hospital from a clinic subsidiary on the southern Hainan island, located 3,000km away. The surgery is said to have lasted three hours and ended successfully. The patient, suffering from Parkinson’s disease, is said to be feeling well after the pioneering operation. The doctor used a computer connected to the next-generation 5G network developed by Chinese tech giant Huawei. The new device enabled a near real-time connection, according to Dr. Ling.  “You barely feel that the patient is 3,000 kilometers away,”  he said.
Read more

BMW traps alleged thief by remotely locking him in car

BMW traps alleged thief by remotely locking him in car Stealer's Wheel? Seattle police department quotes "Watchmen" movie in a recap of the recent arrest. Tech Culture by Gael Fashingbauer Cooper December 4, 2016 5:00 PM PST It's maybe the most satisfying arrest we can imagine. Seattle police caught an alleged car thief by enlisting the help of car maker BMW to both track and then remotely lock the luckless criminal in the very car he was trying to steal. Jonah Spangenthal-Lee, deputy director of communications for the Seattle Police Department, posted a witty summary of the event on the SPD's blog on Wednesday. Turns out if you're inside a stolen car, it's perhaps not the best time to take a nap. "A car thief awoke from a sound slumber Sunday morning (Nov. 27) to find he had been remotely locked inside a stolen BMW, just as Seattle police officers were bearing down on him," Spangenthal-Lee wrote. The suspect found a ke
Read more

Visualizing The Power Of The World's Supercomputers

Visualizing The Power Of The World's Supercomputers   BY TYLER DURDEN FRIDAY, JAN 21, 2022 - 04:15 AM   A supercomputer is a machine that is built to handle billions, if not trillions of calculations at once. Each supercomputer is actually made up of many individual computers (known as nodes) that work together in parallel. A common metric for measuring the performance of these machines is  flops , or  floating point operations per second . In this visualization,  Visual Capitalist's Marcus Lu uses  November 2021 data from  TOP500  to visualize the computing power of the world’s top five supercomputers. For added context, a number of modern consumer devices were included in the comparison. Ranking by Teraflops Because supercomputers can achieve over one quadrillion flops, and consumer devices are much less powerful, we’ve used  teraflops  as our comparison metric. 1 teraflop = 1,000,000,000,000 (1 trillion) flops. Supercomputer Fugaku  was completed in March 202
Read more