Virtual reality therapy to help veterans dealing with trauma

MILITARY veterans who suffer with post traumatic stress disorder could soon be treated using virtual reality – taking them back to the battlefield to confront their trauma.

The study, conducted by Cardiff University, aims to guide former members of the Armed Forces through “talking therapies” with the help of images, music and a treadmill.

It is designed to replicate moments when the mental trauma first began and help them overcome it.

The treatment is called “motionassisted multi-modular memory desensitisation and reconsolidation” – or 3MDR for short – and will be offered to veterans who have not responded to other psychological treatments.

Will Watkins, a community veterans’ mental health therapist based in Cwm Taf University Health Board, is an accredited cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) practitioner and is hopeful it could provide a breakthrough in treating “treatment-resistant” PTSD.

“This is a new talking therapy that shares many of the principles and methods used in existing trauma focused psychological therapies, but which extends these using virtual reality techniques including adding in your own music, photographs and walking on a treadmill,” he explains.

“It takes existing therapies such as CBT and EMDR (eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing therapy) a step further by supporting the participants to ‘step into’ the trauma and engage with the difficult memories alongside a therapist.”

So far, 3MDR therapy has only been tested in a single study involving a small number of military veterans in the Netherlands.

Larger studies, like this one, are now needed with researchers looking to recruit 42 British veterans with military related treatment-resistant PTSD in Wales.

Veterans will be recruited from the Veterans’ NHS Wales service initially. All 3MDR sessions are provided by experienced psychological trauma therapists in an outpatient clinic run by the School of Healthcare Sciences at Cardiff University and located at the University Hospital of Wales site.

Dr Neil Kitchiner, director of Veterans’ NHS Wales and principal investigator on the 3MDR study, said: “Wales is leading the way in the UK with this novel trauma focused psychological therapy.

“We need new evidenced-based therapies to offer those veterans where current psychological therapies have not worked.

“Our team of experienced psychological therapists are working with colleagues from Cardiff University to test 3MDR on this difficult to treat group. We will know if 3MDR works by the end of 2019.”

The technology has been funded by Forces in Mind Trust (FiMT) and the National Lottery.