VR Applications In Therapeutic And Rehabilitation Settings

We intend to do no harm. It is an oath sworn by medical practitioners and generally upheld by human morality. However, if we are not pursuing the best possible options in providing healthcare for patients, are we not doing harm out of negligence? In our technologically-driven world, new areas of medical research and practice are open wide for exploration. One such area is virtual reality (VR), a concept that is not at all new, but that has nonetheless evolved in recent years and yields promising results for therapeutic purposes. Through a critical examination, we will identify recent research concerning VR applications in therapeutic and rehabilitation settings, and we will subsequently provide a series of potentialities that will serve Kaiser

A simulation would be perfect for this situation because driving, especially under the wheel of an unprepared driver, is dangerous. There is a case or experiment conducted by Wald and Taylor (2000) that involved the use of virtual reality applications for a patient with driving phobia. The patient completed three sessions of VRET, each being one hour. From one session to the other, there has been data of a decrease in peak anxiety. In the post-treatment assessment, the patient’s” phobic symptoms have diminished, and she no longer met the diagnostic criteria for driving phobia.” In addition, the patient’s level of anxiety and avoidance declined from pre-treatment to post-treatment, with gains maintained at a seven month follow up [4]. The efficacy of VRET in treatment of phobia for driving seems evident in that the patient no longer met the diagnostic

A person with a fear of driving not only puts themselves in danger when driving, but puts other innocent civilians in danger. So, a great way to tackle this phobia is to use VRET. This method could be useful in the beginning phases of a treatment. Using VRET would be effective before applying in vivo exposure because it can reduce higher levels of anxiety before putting patients with a real situation.

Both the experiments conducted by Wald J and Taylor S showed the efficacy of VRET on treating driving phobia. There lied differences in outcomes due to many factors such as severity of the phobia and motivation for treatment; however, most patients showed clear improvements. It can be inferred that applying VRET is a viable approach to treating driving phobia. In addition, the emergence of virtual reality creates a safe, inexpensive, and accepted tool in psychology. Who wouldn’t want to be treated using virtual