Virtual Reality Therapy in Clinical Psychology – a conceptual paper

Virtual reality therapy came into existence in the mainstream of psychology in the last two decades.Virtual reality is a technology, a communication interface, and an artificial experience. VR has nowemerged as the promising tool in many domains of clinical care and research as the capacity of thistechnology creates controllable, multisensory, interactive 3D stimulus offering clinical assessment,intervention and training. Virtual reality therapy is a medium of in-vivo exposure therapy that is unreal butrelies on perceptual stimulation, visual cues, sounds, touch and smell to trigger emotions which is used forintegrating and enhancing actual therapeutic approaches. The unique value of this technology hascontinued to grow and advanced the clinical areas that have long been mired in the methods of the past.The aim of the present study is to emphasize the potential offered by Virtual Reality (VR) in clinicalpsychology and its advances in therapeutic uses, in the treatment of numerous anxiety disorders, sexualdysfunctions and also for children with disabilities, also discussing the clinical rationale

Terapia de exposición con realidad virtual evaluada mediante minería de textos

El artículo presenta un estudio acerca de la aplicación de Minería de Textos en la evaluación de la psicoterapia. Nuestros voluntarios fueron sujetos diagnosticados con fobia social y tratados con terapia de exposición en Realidad Virtual. El cálculo de la polaridad emocional, desde el enfoque del análisis sintáctico, fue aplicado al material narrativo producido por los propios voluntarios. Para su valoración cuantitativa se utilizó el lexicón de sentimientos LIWC (Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count). Los resultados obtenidos muestran una relación proporcional entre el nivel emocional global de los textos y el avance de la práctica psicológica, lo que sugiere su consideración como evidencia para medir la efectividad de la terapia.

This article presents a study about the application of text mining in psychotherapeutic evaluations. Our volunteers are subjects diagnosed with social phobia and treated with virtual reality exposure therapy. Evaluación de psicoterapia Sentiment analysis, through syntactic analysis, was applied over narrative material the volunteers produced themselves; forthe quantitative assessment, we used the sentiment lexicon LIWC (Linguistics Inquiry and Word Count). The results show a proportional relation between the emotional level of the narrative material and the advancement of therapy, which suggests the consideration of text mining as an effectiveness indicator for psychotherapies.

O artigo apresenta um estudo sobre a aplicação do mineração de texto na avaliação da psicoterapia. Nossos voluntários foram pacientes com diagnóstico de fobia social e tratada com terapia de exposição em Realidade Virtual. O cálculo da polaridade emocional, a partir da abordagem de análise, foi aplicada no material narrativa produzida pelos próprios voluntários. Foi utilizada para a avaliação quantitativa o léxico de sentimentos LIWC (Linguistic Inquiry e Word Count). Os resultados mostram uma relação proporcional entre o nível emocional general de textos e o avanço da prática psicológica, sugerindo-sea sua consideração como prova para medir a eficacia da terapia.

Mirror Therapy Using Virtual Reality on the Wrsit of Rheumatoid Arthritis; Pilot Trial

OBJECTIVE: Authors conducted the pilot trial to evaluate whether the virtual reality using mirror therapy induces analgesia and functional improvement to the patients of rheumatoid wrist arthritis. METHOD: Three patients with no symptom or sign of active phase at both wrists were recruited. Voluntary range of motion (ROM) of each wrist over as far as possible was recorded and then the same movement was recorded only over 60% of the previous one after break of 5 minutes. For the virtual reality treatment, the second recorded motion was reconstructed into the another one of as same ROM and spent time as the first one, providing confusing visual information to the patients while patients were instructed to reach only the red flags (60% ROM of 1st one). This exercise was repeated for 5 days. Numerous scales such as VAS, ROM, Michigan Hand Outcomes Questionaire (MHQ), Performance and Satisfaction in Activities of Daily Living (PS-ADL), patient-rated wrist evaluation (PRWE) were evaluated before and after repetition. RESULTS: The increased satisfaction with their hands (satisfaction score of MHQ; 5.8 ± 2.3, [6-30]), improved ADL performances (PS-ADL score: 5.0 ± 3.5, [0-117]), and no side effect were noticed. CONCLUSION: The virtual reality using mirror therapy may be safe and has some analgesic effect, which warrants a clinical trial in the future for the patients of rheumatoid wrist arthritis.

Uso de seriuos games para reabilitação de avcs através de interfaces imercivas em ambientes virtuais 3d / Serious games for stroke rehabilitation employing immersive user interfaces in 3d virtual environment / Utilizacion de serious games para reabilitacion de derrames por medio de interfaces inmersivas enambientes virtuales 3d

Stroke is a disease with very high socio-economic impact. In average, the healthcare expenditure cost for Strokes across different countries in Europe and USA exceeds 3% of their entire healthcare expenditure, including inpatient treatments, outpatient hospital visits and long-term rehabilitation and care. Therefore, there is an urgent need for devising an effective long-term care and rehabilitation strategy for stroke patients, which would actively involve patients in the rehabilitation process while minimizing costly human support. This paper reports on the ongoing developments of the serious gaming approach to an integrated rehabilitation training for post-stroke patients employing the Unity3D virtual reality environment combined with a hybrid of advanced media technologies and immersive user interfaces. The proposed approach empowers the patients and their caretakers for effective application of rehabilitation protocols in their home settings, while leading physicians are enabled to supervise the progress of the rehabilitation (and intervene if needed) through the use of Personal Health Record (PHR) system. The increased rehabilitation speed and ability to perform training at home directly improves quality of life of patients. The work described herein has been performed in the ?StrokeBack? project co-funded by the European Commission under the Framework 7 Program in the ICT domain...

Acidentes vasculares são incidentes com um alto impacto socioeconômico. Em média, tratamentos na Europa e nos EUA para pacientes com este problema pode ultrapassar 3% de todo o orçamento de uma seguradora, incluindo atendimento em hospitais, visitas a domicílios e tratamentos de reabilitação. Assim sendo, há uma grande urgência para encontrar tratamentos e estratégias de atendimento de longo tempo que sejam capazes de reduzir os recursos humanos e custos necessários. Este trabalho apresenta o desenvolvimento de jogos sérios como uma estratégia para integrar tratamentos de reabilitação para pacientes que tiveram derrames. A solução utiliza um cenário de realidade virtual combinado com tecnologias avançadas de mídias e interfaces imersivas. A proposta potencializa a reabilitação dos pacientes, possibilitando-os que permaneçam em suas casas, ao mesmo tempo permitindo que os médicos tenham a capacidade de supervisionar o progresso de suas atividades (e se necessário também interfiram), através do uso do sistema PHR (Armazenamento de Saúde Pessoal). O aumento da velocidade obtida na reabilitação e a habilidade de realizar treinamentos em casa impacta diretamente na qualidade de vida dos pacientes. O trabalho apresentado foi desenvolvido dentro do contexto do projeto ?StrokeBack?, que foi co-financiado pela comissão Europeia dentro do Programa Framework 7, no domínio da ICT...

Accidentes vasculares son incidentes con un alto impacto socioeconómico. En promedio, un tratamiento en Europa o Estados Unidos para pacientes con este problema puede ultrapasar el 3% del presupuesto de una seguradora, incluyendo atendimientos en hospitales, visitas a domicilios y tratamientos de rehabilitación. Siendo así, hay una gran urgencia en encontrar tratamientos y estrategias de atendimiento de largo tiempo que sean capaces de reducir los recursos humanos y costos necesarios. Este trabajo presenta el desarrollo de juegos serios como estrategia para integrar tratamientos de rehabilitación para pacientes que tuvieron derrames. La solución utiliza un ambiente de realidad virtual combinado con tecnologías avanzadas de medias y interfaces interactivas. La propuesta potencializa la rehabilitación de pacientes, posibilitándolos que permanezcan en sus casas, al mismo tiempo permitiendo que los médicos tengan la capacidad de supervisiones del progreso de sus actividades (y si necesario también interfieran), mediante el uso del sistema PHR (Almacenamiento de Salud Personal). El aumento de la velocidad obtenida en la rehabilitación y en la habilidad de realizar entrenamientos en la casa impacta directamente en la calidad de vida de los pacientes. El trabajo fue desarrollado dentro del contexto del proyecto ?StrokeBack?, que fue co-financiado por la comisión Europea dentro del Programa Framework 7, en el dominio de la ICT...

Effect of Virtual Reality on Cognitive Dysfunction in Patients With Brain Tumor

OBJECTIVE: To investigate whether virtual reality (VR) training will help the recovery of cognitive function in brain tumor patients. METHODS: Thirty-eight brain tumor patients (19 men and 19 women) with cognitive impairment recruited for this study were assigned to either VR group (n=19, IREX system) or control group (n=19). Both VR training (30 minutes a day for 3 times a week) and computer-based cognitive rehabilitation program (30 minutes a day for 2 times) for 4 weeks were given to the VR group. The control group was given only the computer-based cognitive rehabilitation program (30 minutes a day for 5 days a week) for 4 weeks. Computerized neuropsychological tests (CNTs), Korean version of Mini-Mental Status Examination (K-MMSE), and Korean version of Modified Barthel Index (K-MBI) were used to evaluate cognitive function and functional status. RESULTS: The VR group showed improvements in the K-MMSE, visual and auditory continuous performance tests (CPTs), forward and backward digit span tests (DSTs), forward and backward visual span test (VSTs), visual and verbal learning tests, Trail Making Test type A (TMT-A), and K-MBI. The VR group showed significantly (p<0.05) better improvements than the control group in visual and auditory CPTs, backward DST and VST, and TMT-A after treatment. CONCLUSION: VR training can have beneficial effects on cognitive improvement when it is combined with computer-assisted cognitive rehabilitation. Further randomized controlled studies with large samples according to brain tumor type and location are needed to investigate how VR training improves cognitive impairment.