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The cases of virtual reality helmets used to help heal the fear of heights have attracted the attention of the media.
The fear of heights (acrophobia) is a common phobia, affecting about one in five people.
This new study randomized 100 people fearing heights without treatment or to receive 6 sessions of a virtual reality (VR) intervention delivered over 2 weeks.
Treatment involved wearing a VR helmet where patients were exploring different environments, such as tall buildings, while a virtual therapist was talking to them about their fears. The goal was to help patients see that they were actually a lot safer than they thought.
Participants completed questionnaires about their fear of heights before and after treatment, then again at 4 weeks. All people started the study with a score of about 53 on a scale of fear between 16 and 80. After the scores of the RV people had halved, to an average of 28. [19659002] The study left some unanswered questions: long-term treatment? How would these patients do it if they put their fears to the test by going to the top place?
But overall, there is an interesting development in the use of virtual reality to help common mental health conditions.
It is believed that VR has the potential to help people with various mental health problems to gain cost-effective access to a range of psychological treatments
Where does the study come from? ?
The research was conducted by the University of Oxford, University of Barcelona and Virtual Bodyworks in Barcelona, Spain. The study was funded by Oxford Virtual Reality and the Oxford Health Biomedical Research Center of the National Institute of Health Research.
The study was published in the medical journal The Lancet and is available for free online
The media reports of the study were fairly balanced and included personal experiences of people who participated in the study. # 39; test.
What kind of research was this?
This was a randomized controlled trial (RCT) to determine if VR could help cure a person's fear.
It is thought that VR could help people with various mental illnesses have the best access to psychological treatments. VR can be delivered in a number of formats and means that the therapist does not need to be present. By simply putting on a helmet, people could, in theory, be guided through situations that cause them distress.
The first use of VR in the field of mental health has been to treat fear of heights. An earlier trial found positive effects and the current trial was aimed at investigating a virtual coach to help boost feelings of safety to counter fearful associations. An RCT comparing this to the usual care is the best way to determine if the technique is beneficial
What did the researchers do?
The study recruited adults from Oxfordshire who then completed an online questionnaire on fear of heights. Questionnaire of interpretation (HIQ). The score ranges from 16 to 80 with higher scores indicating greater fear of heights.
Those with scores above 29 were eligible. People currently receiving some form of psychological therapy for fear of heights have been excluded.
One hundred adults were enrolled, half of whom were randomly assigned to the RV, the other half to usual care.
VR treatment involved software called "Now I Can Do Heights" with a headset, headphones, microphone and handheld controllers. People received the treatment standing up and could walk around.
A virtual coach talks about the fear of heights and how to fix it. For example, "The reason we are afraid of heights is that we think that something bad is going to happen … But I will show you how to look at these thoughts in a new way.
They were then asked about the certainty that they had to fear that things would happen, such as buildings that collapse or that they throw themselves into a building .
Then, with the virtual coach, they explored a virtual environment, like a tall building, to learn how safe they were and how such things should happen.
Participants did some work and were also told about short-term ways to make things easier, such as turning a blind eye for a moment or hanging on to something.
The whole device consisted of performing repeated tests to help people learn that they were actually safer than they thought.
About 6 30-minute sessions were given during the 2-week treatment period. The main outcome evaluation consisted of a new QII questionnaire after two weeks and again at four weeks.
The study was single-blind, meaning that the evaluators did not know whether the participants had received the intervention or not
What were the baseline results?
The average scores on the HIQ before treatment were about 53, with most people meeting the medical standard of a fear of heights.
Participants in the usual care group did not change their scores at 2- and 4-week assessments. Meanwhile, scores nearly halved for people in the VR group, reducing by 24 points to a score of about 28 to 2 weeks, which persisted at 4 weeks. They also had significant changes on the subscales assessing anxiety and avoidance.
No adverse effects of the intervention have been reported.
The researchers conclude, "Psychotherapies administered automatically by a coach [virtual reality] can produce great clinical benefits, but evidence-based treatments [virtual reality] have the potential to dramatically increase treatment options. mental disorders. health disorders. "
Conclusions
This is an interesting study exploring the potential of VR to help people who are afraid of heights .The results look promising and the change in the odds of fear seems important enough that it can make a significant difference for people.
There are just a few things to consider:
- fear of heights is quite common, and as researchers have recognized, we do not know how much this small sample of 100 people is representative
- up to 4 weeks, so we do not know if the effects of a short 2 week treatment session would persist in the longer term to months or years
- as the evaluations were done by people completing questionnaires, we do not know how many of them had since "put their fears to the test", for example in amount of buildings high ents to see if it really had made an effective difference
- the therapy was not compared to standard treatment for phobias, such as cognitive behavior therapy (CBT), so we can not assume that it's better or more effective
- resourcing and eligibility to access virtual reality therapies could be a potential problem if they were introduced into normal clinical practice
- we do not know if the treatment could be extended to help with other phobias
Overall however, the trial is of interest and explores another way for the treatment common phobias.
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