Can virtual reality help cure the mental health epidemic?
Nicholas Fearn finds out how virtual reality is being used to treat mental health conditions – and help non-sufferers experience them.
The world is on the verge of a mental health crisis. According to the World Health Organisation, the number of people diagnosed with a neurological condition is accelerating. There were around 416 million people reported to be suffering from depression or anxiety in 1990 – by 2013, that number had grown to 615 million.
With so many people being diagnosed with mental health conditions, there’s an increasing strain on health institutions to take action. Treatment is expensive, and as we’ve seen here in the UK, funding for mental health is often given lower priority than conditions such as cancer and heart disease. Even if care is available, many people are afraid to seek help because of the stereotypes associated with mental health. The Counselling Directory claims that only 230 of 300 people diagnosed will seek the help of a specialist.
However, there is a potential solution to both limited healthcare resources and people’s reluctance to seek professional help: virtual reality. is one of the organisations interested in using VR to treat mental illness. It has developed Bravemind, a VR-based exposure therapy tool to treat post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other neurological conditions.
Exposure therapy has been used for years to help people deal with PTSD and other stress-related illnesses, but recreating traumatic experiences is challenging. Patients are often unwilling or unable to do so, but VR helps break down these walls. With Bravemind, clinicians can gradually immerse their patients in environments similar to upsetting events in their past. The tool lets doctors control multi-sensory stimuli while monitoring the emotional responses of patients through advanced brain imaging.
“Regardless of virtual reality’s impact on gaming and entertainment, the clinical use of VR for treating mental and physical health conditions is going to be one of the big areas where the technology is here to stay,” said Dr Skip Rizzo, director for medical virtual reality at the Institute for Creative Technologies. “VR experiences are well-matched to the needs of various treatment
“Patients can navigate these scenarios and learn to manage their reactions, both cognitive and physical, from the safety of the office”
approaches, and research has already shown added value for addressing phobias, PTSD, depression, pain management, eating disorders, and for the rehabilitation of cognitive and physical function following a stroke or other form of brain injury.” Until now, several hurdles have stood in the way: costs, complexity, and clinician unfamiliarity with the equipment needed to use VR clinically. All three could soon be swept away. “VR technology is charging forward in the consumer marketplace with new low-cost, high-fidelity and usable product offerings that will likely drive wider-scale adoption,” said Rizzo. “This will result in a scenario where it’s probable that, in the next few years, a VR device will be like a toaster – although you may not use it every day, every household will have one. That... will likely support accelerated uptake in the healthcare domain as the general public will have more exposure to VR and will come to see the value of the unique experiences that VR can create, beyond the world of digital games.”
FACING SYMPTO MS HEAD- ON
Consumer technology is already being used to treat mental health patients. Behavioral Associates, an outpatient therapy office based in New York, has begun using VR equipment, primarily the Samsung Gear 360 camera.
Brieanna Scolaro, a social worker and director of community relations at the centre, explained that this technology is making it easier for victims to face their symptoms and fears head-on, and is optimistic that it’s becoming accessible. “The advent of virtual reality was huge for the mental health world,” she said. “Previously, a patient had to either sit in the office and imagine the feared situation or be immersed in the experience, such as getting on a plane. Now patients can navigate these scenarios and learn to manage their reactions, both cognitive and physical, from the safety of the office.
“Virtual reality should be considered the standard for exposure work,” she added. “It’s too effective not to utilise, and the research has clearly backed it. When the technology first came out, the price made it inaccessible to many. Now, any clinician can get set up for the price of a Samsung phone and a Gear VR headset – about $600, if that.”
However, VR treatments aren’t without challenges. “The struggle is two-part,” said Scolaro. “On one side, practitioners aren’t learning about these techniques in schools and may not feel comfortable learning a new procedure. On the patient side, people may be sceptical about how a piece of equipment can be helpful to their treatment.
“The last part is where my role comes in – educating the general public about the uses of VR therapy and its effectiveness. It’s my belief that, by using virtual reality, we can provide mental health services to more individuals by navigating around mental health stigma.
“Many people don’t believe in getting mental health services, and if they do, they most certainly don’t want to talk about it. But what if you go to VR training? So, in addition to being an extremely effective treatment, we can navigate around the stigma and increase accessibility.”
AN EW PERS PECTIVE
VR doesn’t only provide treatments for those suffering with conditions; it can help people understand what the world looks like to those who are battling mental illness. Visualise, a VR studio based in London, is working with Jane Gauntlett, who created a project called In My Shoes: Dancing
with Myself, which aims to spread the awareness of neurological conditions.
It uses a mixture of 360-degree video and 3D audio-production techniques to give the viewer a firstperson perspective of what it’s like to live with a neurological condition. “One of the key areas VR can help mental health, outside of treatment, is in empathy VR – helping people to understand issues and conditions that we may be far removed from,” said Henry Stuart, CEO of Visualise. “We used 360 VR technology to film and put you in the shoes of Jane Gauntlett, a lady with epilepsy.
“In this experience, you’re at the table in Jane’s body at a restaurant. Her friends come in and talk to her, and you hear her voice in her head. She progresses towards an epileptic fit and you black out. The resulting time after Jane wakes up and how everyone in the room treats her is powerful and certainly has been helping people to understand epilepsy better.”
These examples show how VR is already being used to help patients, and Stuart believes it will become more common. “In the short term, these [experiences] will be driven by charities and healthcare companies trying to drive empathy... In the longer term, these will be with real treatments. VR has a huge part to play in future mental health treatment.”