Treating Traumatic Stress with Videogames

garzpacho writes "Doctors at the Virtual Reality Medical Center are using VR video games to treat post-traumatic stress disorder among vets returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. The software behind the treatment incorporates elements from the military training video game Full Spectrum Warrior, and had some input from designers of America's Army. From the article: 'Dr. Dennis Wood takes patients on what some might consider an odd journey. He starts off leading them to a military compound in Fallujah, Iraq. He then guides them through an Iraqi marketplace before they accompany a patrol through Iraqi homes. And if he thinks they're up to it, he may even take them onto a battlefield, in the midst of explosions and aircraft flying overhead.'"

Comments

Move over Janov, let propranolol take a load off

[Baldrson]

Imagine a drug that could obviate post traumatic stress disorder and Arthur Janov's Primal Therapy. Then imagine a drug that could reduce the emotional impact of sermons about Hell you've heard or of movies you've seen -- movies like "Deliverance" or "The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind". It has a name and it's "propranolol".

The oldest new in the Business: /.

[smvp6459]

http://www.primidi.com/2005/03/27.html