|
 Over four weeks of sessions, scores measuring fear of heights
dropped by an average of two-thirds for volunteers who wore a
virtual reality headset in anxiety-provoking situations, such as
walking out on a platform over a large drop-off or rescuing a cat
stuck in a tree, researchers said.
"In virtual reality, people can repeatedly enter simulations of the
everyday situations that trouble them and be guided in the very best
ways to think, feel and behave," said the study's lead author,
Daniel Freeman of the University of Oxford. "The beauty is that the
conscious awareness that these are simulations allows people to try
things that they would be wary of in real life."
While the method might apply to other phobias as well, Freeman and
his colleagues chose to experiment with fear of heights because it
is the most common phobia, with one in five people saying they've
experienced it at some point.
The novel aspect of the new study is that no actual therapist was
present during the sessions, just a "virtual coach" who walked each
participant through the exercises, Freeman said. The animated coach
asked questions that required yes/no answers or a rating of fear
level, and then responded with suggestions.
One hundred people participated in the study, with 49 randomly
assigned to get the virtual reality therapy in six 30-minute
sessions and the others to receive no therapy for their fear of
heights during the study period. (They were offered the VR treatment
after the study was done).
On average, participants had experienced fear of heights for 30
years. To be included, they had to score between 30 and 55 on an
acrophobia questionnaire, indicating a moderate fear of heights, or
between 56 and 80, indicating severe fear.
As reported in The Lancet Psychiatry, at the end of the treatment
period, half of the volunteers who got the VR treatment had scores
at least 25 points lower than at the outset, while the group that
didn't get the treatment had little change in their scores.
"Afterwards, people even found they could go to places they wouldn't
have imagined possible, such as a walk up a steep mountain, going
with their children on a rope bridge, or simply using an escalator
in a shopping center without fear," Freeman said.
[to top of second column] |
Past research on the effectiveness of in-person treatment with a
therapist has shown comparable benefits, but the current study did
not compare VR treatment to any other therapy. Another limitation,
the authors note, is that they can't tell what aspects of the VR
treatment were most effective.
Freeman and several other study authors are affiliated with Oxford
VR, a company that partially funded the study.
Freeman doesn't see virtual reality replacing real therapists. But
it may fill a void caused by the shortage of therapists and also
might help reduce the cost of treatment for people with phobias.
Programs like this might work well as a first step to getting people
over their phobias, said Dr. Robert Hudak, a psychiatrist at the
University of Pittsburgh Medical Center in Pennsylvania. "I could
conceive of someone with fear of flying using virtual reality to get
to the point where they could actually fly on a plane," said Hudak,
who was not involved in the study.
"I don't think anyone is advocating this in place of a therapist,
but it could be used as a step in many people's treatment. With any
kind of therapy patients are supposed to do homework. If they were
doing a virtual reality program, then they'd be doing their
homework," Hudak said.
"When you're working with an individual with anxiety you want to
help them face the things they're afraid of: that's called exposure
therapy," said Lynne Bufka, a clinical psychologist and associate
executive director for practice, research and policy at the American
Psychological Association in Washington, DC.
Virtual reality therapy is not yet widely available, said Bufka, who
wasn't involved in the study. But with advances in technology making
the programs more and more realistic, she can see it expanding. "It
could help a lot of people," she said.
SOURCE: https://bit.ly/2KR62U4 and https://bit.ly/2KPSHep The Lancet
Psychiatry, online July 11, 2018.
[© 2018 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2018 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content. |
