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It's No Game: DOD Uses Virtual Reality to Treat PTSD

Salvatore Salamone | Date: 09-20-10 | Comments

Virtual reality therapy systems are being used to help treat Iraqi vets who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder.

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It's No Game: DOD Uses Virtual Reality to Treat PTSD
In the blockbuster movie "Avatar," virtual reality is used to return a physically disabled soldier back to a more normal life. The movie takes place in the distant future and is clearly science fiction.

Even so, military psychologists are using virtual reality today to help Iraq War veterans recover from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Using the system, the medical professionals can re-create a combat situation such as an attack, an explosion or an ambush, and help the veteran work through the elements of that situation that triggered the stress.

The system was developed as part of a joint effort that involved the U.S. Air Force, U.S. Navy and U.S. Army, along with the University of Southern California and the virtual reality development company Virtually Better Inc. Working together, the groups produced a system dubbed Virtual Iraq, which electronically re-creates Iraqi environments. The system uses graphics to deliver a video game-like display, as well as sounds and even smells, to help those suffering from PTSD revisit the events that affected them.

Therapists check the operation of the virtual reality therapy software (source: U.S. Air Force).

One particularly interesting aspect about Virtual Iraq is that the system uses a great deal of existing technology. In fact, the group borrowed heavily from a virtual reality training system that already existed. It adapted the real-time tactics video game "Full Spectrum Warrior" to create the Virtual Iraq clinical tool. "Full Spectrum Warrior," in turn, was developed by the military to "learn if commercial gaming platforms could be leveraged for training," according to Wikipedia.

The idea with "Full Spectrum Warrior" was to see if the military could use commercially available gaming hardware to lower the cost of its training simulation efforts. Making use of commercial platforms would cut costs, and the original developers felt younger recruits would take to the technology, since most had grown up playing video games.

With Virtual Iraq, some of the therapists believe the familiarity with video gaming makes the use of this type of therapy more appealing to many of today's younger PTSD sufferers.

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