VR Goggles Heal Scars of War
From: Wired News - 08/22/2005
By: Xeni Jardin

An experimental virtual-reality system that vividly replicates combat trauma
is being used to treat soldiers suffering from shellshock. The Institute for
Creative Technologies at the University of Southern California developed the
system last year with the U.S. Office of Naval Research. Cmdr. Russell
Shilling with the Office of Naval Research says the project is novel in that
it attempts to treat post-traumatic stress disorder early, rather than years,
sometimes decades, after the trauma. The patient wears headphones and VR
goggles, while a clinician uses a control tablet to choose from an array of
artificial environments and enhance them with stress-inducing audio and
visual effects that can be dialed up or down according to how patients react
physiologically. Institute for Creative Technologies virtual therapy
developer Dr. Albert Rizzo says odors will be added to the mix with a device
that generates smells. Dr. James Spira with the San Diego Medical Center's
Health Psychology Program says VR's appeal as a therapeutic tool lies in its
ability to reproduce a trauma's full sensory input, and adds that the new
system is more effective as a healing aid than any other tool he has used.
Backers of VR therapy experiments hope that part of a $1.5 billion increase
in veterans' health care funding authorized by Congress in July will be
committed to the development of similar technologies. 

Read the entire article at:
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,68575,00.html

Links:
Institute for Creative Technologies
http://www.ict.usc.edu/disp.php?PHPSESSID=e535e235f56ab46c673d47ed5c3480ae

Development of a Virtual Reality Therapy Application for Iraq War Veterans with PTSD
http://www.cri.haifa.ac.il/index.html?http://www.cri.haifa.ac.il/events/2005/vr/vr_schedule.php