'Virtual Iraq' helping veterans
The technique uses a computer program called "Virtual Iraq," in which patients don headsets that block out everything but the program playing in front of them. The technology accelerates a treatment known as exposure therapy, in which patients recall their trauma while working with therapists to lessen anxiety, said researchers at the American Psychiatric Association meeting in Washington.
Standard exposure therapy without computer simulation was identified last year in a report from the Institute of Medicine as the most successful method of treating combat soldiers with post-traumatic stress disorder. The computer system was developed by Virtually Better Inc., a closely held Atlanta company. The program has been tested in more than 70 patients in the U.S.
"Exposure therapy has proven to be efficacious in treating PTSD but it doesn't work with everybody," said Scott Johnston, a psychologist who works with soldiers using the program at the Naval Medical Center in San Diego, in a telephone interview yesterday. "Some people have a harder time recalling and imagining the trauma inside their head."
The company is providing the program to some facilities run by the U.S. military and the Office of Veterans Affairs with funding from the National Institute of Mental Health.
People with post-traumatic stress disorder have intrusive memories of traumatic events, and suffer flashbacks, nightmares, and panicked reactions to normal events such as a car backfiring or a helicopter flying overhead.
Inadequate treatment for these conditions is contributing to a growing number of suicides among soldiers and veterans who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, said Thomas Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health, at a May 5 press conference.
In standard exposure therapy, patients may be asked to close their eyes, picture a situation, and go over it in detail, said Maryrose Gerardi, a psychologist who has led most of the virtual reality sessions conducted at Emory University with soldiers who fought in Iraq.
"But you don't know how well people are picturing it, or even if they are," Gerardi said in a telephone interview yesterday. The computer program "makes it hard to avoid; even if someone closes their eyes, they'll still hear the sounds."
"You can dial up the stimulus and add in a firefight," she said. "We can tailor it" to mimic the unique traumatic experiences that would later trigger symptoms in each person.
