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Treating Traumatic Stress with Videogames

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the better-than-a-stuffed-bunny dept.

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.'"

20 of 78 comments (clear)

  1. But... by ackthpt · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What if my Post Traumatic Stress was caused by video games?

    Actually I found any game I played too much of could really mess me up for a few days. Muds were terrible for going around unconciously assessing what level people were and how many experience and gold I could get if I snuffed 'em.

    Now I stick to simple strategy games which only give me unconscious reflexive behaviour to want real estate in bright, shiny primary colours.

    "oh, blue! want that!" "hmm the intersection of ocean and water looks like a good place to harvest wool, wheat and wood"

    I'd probably have post traumatic stress if I even came close to one of these

    --

    A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
  2. It's all ok... by fireman+sam · · Score: 4, Funny

    The war in Iraq/Iran/Syria was just a game, nobody *REALLY* got hurt. Now go home and watch some tv... Shhh, it was just a game...

    --
    it is only after a long journey that you know the strength of the horse.
    1. Re:It's all ok... by ackthpt · · Score: 2, Funny

      The war in Iraq/Iran/Syria was just a game, nobody *REALLY* got hurt. Now go home and watch some tv... Shhh, it was just a game...

      I'm waiting for the game based upon this episode of history. I expect it will be named With Us or Against Us

      --

      A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
    2. Re:It's all ok... by megaditto · · Score: 2, Funny
      The real question is, does one have to play the Freedom scenario, or can a hot coffee patch be applied to select the alternative:
       
      start them off at a madrasa in Pakistan, [...] then guide then through planting IEDs in the Iraqi marketplace. And if he thinks they're up to it, he may even take them to see Allah in the midst of 72 vigins flying overhead?
      --
      Obama likes poor people so much, he wants to make more of them.
  3. How times have changed... by rholland356 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    A psychiatrist I knew who served in WWII treated shell-shocked vets by introducing them to model railroading--the type where you would build everything from kits.

    Model railroading worked a lot better than the George S. Patton school of rehabilitation.

    I hope these simulated video environments truly help those soldiers who served our country.

    1. Re:How times have changed... by vldragon · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You sorry son of a bitch. Those "fuckers" as you call them don't decide if they go or not. It the government that tells them. The only choice they have is go where they tell them or go to jail. When people are dieing your upset that you lost some money and people you never met may not like you. Your an arogant bastard that should be beaten in the middle of the street.

      --
      Eating the brains of your enemies does not make you smarter. But it's still fun.
    2. Re:How times have changed... by vldragon · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The minimum lenght of service in the US military is 0 years. (Your not forced to join) However if you do join you can sign up for 4 or 6 years. Not all people who sign up now go to combat. If you want to blame or bitch at some one because you don't agree with the war bitch and blame your elected gov officials. Write them and tell them what you think. Go out and vote for some one that shares your views or run yourself. The point is bitching on /. is poitless. If you want things to change go out and change them. How can you say "signing up in these circumstances is an abdication of your moral responsibilities as a human being"? If no one signs up then our countries military falls apart leaving us defensless. (And countries would attack) Then the combat would be at your front door. And when that happens do you pick up a gun and fight back or do you cower beneath your bed and cry waiting for death. And then you say "Even choosing obedience over jail can be questioned. It's not a good choice to face, but it's still a choice.", but I ask what you would do in that situation. Would you hold up to your morals and defy your orders even as the jail cell closes behind you; or would you do your duty and obey the orders of those appoited over you? You may say that you will stand by your morals but you'll never really know unless you where put in that situation.

      --
      Eating the brains of your enemies does not make you smarter. But it's still fun.
    3. Re:How times have changed... by NEW22 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      While the grandparent post is juvenile, I still take issue with your post. Soldiers do decide if they go or not. They have a choice as to whether they will join the military in the 1st place, and once they are there, they can choose to go to jail instead of going to war. Personally, I do not trust my government and politicians with my life, and I do not trust their moral judgement, though I do believe I would fight if we were at war on our soil. Now, most people join the military at a young age, before they have really had a good chance to maturely assess the state of their world, so I have sympathy that some may be exploited. I also have no doubt that the vast, overwhelming majority of U.S. military personnel desire to protect the United States, and would gladly do so.

      The thing is, there is a very large part of this country that does not believe that what the military is currently doing in a couple places is doing anything to help protect the United States. Some believe it is hurting the United States, others believe it was started for immoral reason. Now, the military did not decide to take those actions, the President did, but at minimum, any soldier who joined after the beginning of hostilities in Iraq should have went in full well knowing what he was supporting. There is nothing immoral in opposing this war, or soldiers who knowingly supported it. Somehow in this country we have decided that soldiers are sacred, and that an individual is not morally culpable if he willingly gives up his own freedom of conscience with knowledge and hands it over to the President. If you intentionally kill, you are responsible. That doesn't mean you are wrong, and it doesn't mean that sometime people don't have to do awful things, but every individual has responsibilty for their actions, and being a soldier in service to a government does nothing to change that. Just because a soldier believes he is serving his country does not mean that he always is. The only garuntee is that a soldier serves the President and government. Those people may or may not be directing the military in a way that serves the country. Rhetoric has conflated the 2, such that now we must always agree that, of course the soldier is serving the country. When directed properly, soldiers do more than anyone to serve this country, I have no doubt of that. Their job requires more sacrifice than potentially any other.

      Now, you look at the U.S. military budget, I am not going to blame individual soldiers for the military budget. Still though, compared to every other nation on Earth, the U.S. does have an absurdly high military budget. This is money that is used in part to fund killing many of us oppose. Money that could either be given back to us, or could be used to directly help people here at home. Many would feel better if their money were used to help the needy in the US instead of kill people in the Middle East. Even if you think that is oversimplified, or do not agree, I think you can understand the outlook of such people.

      You also discount this "it made the rest of the world hate me" aspect, but I think it is also a valid concern. The more of the world that hates me, the more of the world that will wish me harm. Also, I do not wish harm to be done to others in my name, I don't want to piss people off unnecessarily. Call that arrogant and selfish if you wish, but I see nothing wrong with that.

      Also, I do not wish to see you beaten in the middle of the street.

    4. Re:How times have changed... by monoqlith · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You bring up a lot of good points. I don't think I, or anybody, can answer any of your questions conclusively, because contrary to what most people like to believe, "evil" is almost never done knowingly. People are constantly redefining what "good" is to encompass their own beliefs. If we agree to say (charitably) that people always act in rational accordance with their beliefs, then it follows that people never do anything believing that either it or its consequences are fundamentally evil. At some level people always believe that what they are doing constitutes some "good" - even at a barely conscious level. This fact explains why we've been conditioned to buy into static definitions of good and evil - such definitions give us the resolution to act on behalf of our beliefs. This makes psychological sense, since our behavior is determined initially by what elicits thoughts and feelings of "good" - this is how it is reinforced.

      Unfortunately, this is exactly why evil happens. The Nazis believed that ridding the world of the Jews was good. Likewise, the Romans believed that invading foreign territories and killing off their inhabitants was good. With this in mind it is hard to say whether it is reasonable to act on any belief at all, since all beliefs are subject to error. So your question is very difficult: is someone who commits to anything and kills on its behalf honorable and heroic or a fool and taking a grave moral risk? Most people think that believing in something and acting on its behalf is inherently respectable - but they fail to take into account the fact that it is exactly *this* capacity that allows the most egregious evil to occur. So, no, I don't necessarily think that both sides of a conflict inherently demand respect and admiration. On the other hand, I believe that our soldiers demand respect from *us* because - in their minds - they are sacrificing their lives in part *for us*, even if their mission is corrupt or misguided. At some point soldiers do have the responsibility to abort a mission if they see that its goals are contrary to their personal morals - but like anything this is their determination, not ours. It is their prerogative to act with their own agency and to reject a prescribed morality that they see as evil.

    5. Re:How times have changed... by freedom_india · · Score: 2, Insightful
      The whole idea of Military service is unselfish service.

      Commanders and Generals depend on their men obeying unquestioned. That is drilled into every serviceman from ground up.

      War may be ugly, but more dangerous is disobedience. Many more lives depend on men following orders unquestioningly.

      Of course the assumption is the brass is more wiser and more intelligent (which it is not today).

      How would you like during the middle of serious combat in C&C Generals ZH, if your Comanche helicopter refused to fire on the GLA because they don't have enough "back-ups" to back them up?

      I bet, the next moment you would either trash the computer or call up EA and shout at them so badly, they would close their ears.

      How would it have been if the men who sacrificed their lives in Okinawa or Normandy beaches refused to obey orders because they were "thinking" their brass made a mistake.

      A Pfc is NOT paid to think. He is paid to DO. A General or a Field Marshal is paid to THINK. Not DO.

      Go and read Red Storm Rising once more. Better yet read the book Story of Second World War.

      --
      "Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
    6. Re:How times have changed... by Walter+Carver · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I hope these simulated video environments truly help those soldiers who served our country.

      Who served the government, the country had different opinion about this war.

  4. Tit for tat by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    This is truely a remarkable step forward in medical science. Victims of PTSD rejoice! You may now live a productive lifestyle eating cold pizza and tacos while staring at the computer screen. As per yesterday's article it is clear that the experts believe that videogame addiction is far superior to PTSD.

  5. umm,,.... by Dangolo · · Score: 2, Funny

    so they're treating someone who's having a hard time managing themselves in the real world, by submerging them in a virtual world?

    It didn't work out so well for lawnmowerman, or did it?

  6. Messed up by HTTP+Error+403+403.9 · · Score: 2, Insightful
    This seems like a big dream.


    Our leaders (most who have never seen combat) send our children to fight in a hellhole. The troops get blown to shit, the President attends none of their funerals and the one's that survive, we fly them home and let them play video games to cope.

    --
    I'm not a Troll, it's reverse psychology.
  7. Mmmm by BilZ0r · · Score: 3, Interesting

    ...Or they could just give them MDMA

    Imagine if this immersive techneque really worked, and they tried it for other things; some how I don't think they would get away with showing rape PTSD victims Urotsukidoji - Legend of the Overfiend

    --
    -BilZ0r www.ilikethings.net
  8. Move over Janov, let propranolol take a load off by Baldrson · · Score: 2, Informative

    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".

    --
    Seastead this.
  9. The oldest new in the Business: /. by smvp6459 · · Score: 2, Informative

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

  10. Similar Treatments by _Sprocket_ · · Score: 4, Interesting

    My wife was recently diagnosed with MS. The flareup she suffered involved lesions in the area of the brain that deals with balance and nausea. Consequently, her immediate symptoms included severe disorientation and nausea. While these symptoms slowly subsided during her recovery, she was still left with fairly disabling balance issues.

    Once she was finally able to go home, she discovered that different games she played affected her sense of balance in different ways. Two notable examples were Ultima Online and World of Warcraft. The isometric graphics of UO were easily tolerated. WoW quickly made her dizzy. We mentioned this to her rehab doctor who ordered her to add WoW to her routine of home exercises.

    It wasn't the first time we had run in to this advice. We had a contact with Space Medicine at NASA. They had expressed some interest in my wife's condition since the issue of balance is something they work with extensively. One of the interesting side effects of extended space travel is having to become readjusted to gravity; essentially recalibrating your body to properly interpret the effects of gravity. Astronauts will often find themselves easily disoriented and quick to lose their balance during this period of time (it seems to be more pronounced in less-experienced astronauts). One of the treatments to speed recovery is watching a video of motion while running on a treadmill. The video perspective often shifts, challenging the patient's system to properly interpret conflicting perceptions. Our NASA doctor friend saw the issue that he dealt with as very similar to what my wife was experiencing.

    The underlying issue is programing behavioral response. In my wife's case, she is having to re-learn her way around damage. In the Astronauts, they are having to re-learn how to handle stimulus that they had become used to ignoring. I would imagine the soldiers are also re-learning to interpret things in different ways.

  11. It's not too hard by Soulfader · · Score: 2, Insightful
    How do justify killing another man, woman or child?
    After the third time they mortared us, I was remarkably unsympathetic to their viewpoint.
  12. Dude, see a good shrink by Moraelin · · Score: 3, Insightful
    What if my Post Traumatic Stress was caused by video games?


    Heh. I'm used to exaggeration and hype, but this has got to take the crown. I really don't think you really mean that.

    Post Traumatic Stress isn't just about "oh, I'm so stressed that my penis size... err... level isn't the highest in the game." It's about intense psychological trauma caused by a believable threat of imminent death, severe physical injury, or something of that order of magnitude. We're taking the kind of stress that happens when the enemy is shelling your position with artillery or MRLS, or a tank is coming at you and the heaviest weapon you have is a SAW, or you see someone's brains blown out before your very eyes, or you get to storm a house and see what a grenade can do in a closed room (there are WW2 veterans who still break down into tears if you ask them about that), or whatever similarly serious.

    Again, we're not talking just "stress", but the "OMG, I'm DEAD one way or another" kind of being scared shitless for your very life and limb. We're talking intense _terror_ where you see no way out. That kind of thing.

    If you get that kind of pure mind-paralyzing terror out of a MUD, and for such a mundane reason as xp and levels... please don't take it as an insult, but as friendly advice: see a good psychiatrist ASAP. If just comparing your score or level to someone else's can trigger such a massively disproportionate reaction, you have major problems. Seriously.

    That or keep your hyperboles less over-the-top if it was just a hyperbole.
    --
    A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.