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The New VA Health Plan Is Second Life

Posted by Soulskill on from the not-reincarnation dept.

theodp writes "Remember when Catbert informed Dilbert that the new company health plan is Google? In another case of life imitating Dilbert, combat veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder are being provided with a US Army-sponsored virtual world in Second Life (slideshow) to help deal with their condition. Developed by USC's Institute for Creative Technologies, it is hoped that the veterans-only virtual world Coming Home and its planned activities will promote conversations that can help reduce PTSD. The Avatar will see you now, Sergeant."

46 of 54 comments (clear)

  1. I eagerly await... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    griefers with IEDs

    1. Re:I eagerly await... by Sporkinum · · Score: 1

      Except on Second Life, they would be IFPs. Improvised Flying Penises.

      --
      "He's lost in a 'floyd hole"
  2. Good idea, if you ask me. by RobVB · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This is a logical continuation of conference calls and working from home. It's like going to a self help group meeting, without actually having to drive over there (saving time, money, and polar bears). That, and you have an additional layer of anonymity, which might help lower the threshold for newcomers who are too ashamed of joining.

    I think a similar system could work very well for other groups such as AA and NA.

    --
    I'd rather you rationally disagree than irrationally agree.
    1. Re:Good idea, if you ask me. by jd2112 · · Score: 2, Funny

      I think a similar system could work very well for other groups such as AA and NA.

      Great idea! Now if I can only talk Charlie's Bar into providing free Wi-Fi...

      --
      Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
    2. Re:Good idea, if you ask me. by redneckHippe · · Score: 2, Insightful

      As a Vet and a recovering addict, I think this is a great idea. I used to go to NA meetings on IRC back in the day and I used to have my own world in Activeworlds http://www.activeworlds.com/, where me and some friends would get together for a small meeting. It was great, especially when someone was out of town and couldn't make a meeting in meatspace. I'm surprised it's taken this long for the VA to figure this out. LD

      --
      It'll quit hurtin' once the pain stops.
    3. Re:Good idea, if you ask me. by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 1

      It is also a fairly logical implementation, with cheap off-the-shelf technology, of a standard treatment for PTSD.

      So called "exposure therapy" or "prolonged exposure therapy", where the patient is exposed under controlled conditions to the stimuli that frighten them is a standard(and, according to available research, fairly effective) PTSD treatment. It is also used for some anxiety disorders and phobias.

      There has been some previous work with using simulations for the purpose(since "controlled environment" and "insurgents with RPGs" are not especially compatible in real life). Doing it in second life would just be the cheaper, easier, more anonymous version.

      Probably not as good as the full scale equivalent; but it seems like a useful application of 80/20. If, for basically nothing per patient, you can offer help to people who don't want to see a psychiatrist or aren't within driving distance of a psychiatrist, or who don't have access to the specialized VR setups, you'll still likely improve the lot of the patient population as a whole.

    4. Re:Good idea, if you ask me. by GameMaster · · Score: 1

      Yup, they've already got software that comes with Logitech webcams to "greenscreen" out the background. Now they just need to design better audio filters...

      --

      Rules of Conduct:
      #1 - The DM is always right.
      #2 - If the DM is wrong, see rule #1
    5. Re:Good idea, if you ask me. by billcopc · · Score: 1

      I think what jars most people, including myself, is that the whole avatar/Second Life thing is tacky and redundant. If all you want is a chat room, get on IRC. The supposed physicality of an on-screen persona is contrived and far more cumbersome than conversation alone.

      --
      -Billco, Fnarg.com
    6. Re:Good idea, if you ask me. by rtb61 · · Score: 1

      Actually groups like those rely totally on direct personal contact and support based on the helper theory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helper_theory. This crappy half life solution is just a cheap fob off ie. come see us when you have committed a serious criminal offence or actually attempted suicide, until then here is this cheap web site. Direct personal support and contact is required and, yes it will cost significant amounts of money because any skilled professionals are required to support it.

      By far most of the PSTD failures have been due to people not getting any form of support or of getting cut off from support, all based upon budget constraints. You know the real true budget constraint, where it is far cheaper spend money on running marketing campaign about supporting the troops, then spending any money on actually supporting the troops. Of course you follow up with the inevitable public relations equals total and utter bullshit PR=B$ campaign and blame the failures on just a few criminal types who want to sponge off the system ,they were criminals before they joined the military, they were bad soldiers and should not get any support or the ultimate it is all a lie, there are no problems it is all an exaggeration by the progressives, socialists and the intellectuals.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    7. Re:Good idea, if you ask me. by slimshady945 · · Score: 2, Funny

      I'm surprised it's taken this long for the VA to figure this out.

      As a vet and recovering addict, I would have thought you'd be more familiar with the VA than that.

  3. I'm not sure about this. by Shag · · Score: 2, Insightful

    People with PTSD have a hard time dealing with reality. I'm not sure that helping them escape from reality into some virtual world is really going to solve things.

    --
    Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.
    1. Re:I'm not sure about this. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Maybe dealing with reality in small doses is better than having to face it balls to the wall style?

      That's why most modern forms of entertainment aren't about the real world. It's meant to let you forget about your environment for a few hours.

      So building this world where people can be social and not have the obligations of real human socialization is doubtless a plus for guys and gals going through rough times.

    2. Re:I'm not sure about this. by MRe_nl · · Score: 1

      rm -with PTSD

      --
      "Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
    3. Re:I'm not sure about this. by machinelou · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I have a Ph.D. in psychology and I can tell you that the notion of "escaping from reality" is a concept borrowed more from pop-psychology than science. The fact of the matter is, these people need exposure to cues that trigger traumatic memories in a context that is safe, supervised, and controlled. Talking about roadside bombs is an important first step but far less immersive (and less effective) for later parts of therapy than being part of an animated scene where patients get to re-experience a convoy-support mission.

    4. Re:I'm not sure about this. by DerekLyons · · Score: 1

      Yes, shame on people for trying new techniques and new technology. We should stick with the old ways of handling PTSD (basically, handing them alcohol and telling 'em to be a man and to buck up).
       
      Seriously - what is it with Slashdot? Here we have something new (virtual worlds) and Linden Labs and other have spent years trying to work out how to best use it... And (as with Twitter) all the Hivemind can do is snort in disdain.

    5. Re:I'm not sure about this. by Gregoyle · · Score: 3, Informative

      I work in the military as a health care provider.

      One of the biggest problems for military specific PTSD patients is the feeling that no one around them understands. And in most cases, they are right. No one really does understand, nor could they.

      Once someone is medically retired they lose the connection of having buddies around them who've been through the same or at least similar experiences. There aren't many people in civilian life to connect with.

      I think using a Second Life style interface for soldiers and veterans (especially veterans for the reasons I've mentioned above) is a great idea. It provides an opportunity for people to connect with others who have similar experiences. I think it would probably be even more effective to have a game where people are actually doing something rather than just sitting around talking to each other; many veterans will reject something like this as just another "group therapy" session.

      Now a PTSD only Halo server or something would be great. You could even have separate servers for guys blown up in Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. You could have an "I hate MRAPs but I still have my legs" server. The possibilities are endless. If you allowed the soldiers/vets to make their own designations they would probably scandalize those who've never been in the military :-).

      --

      "He's more machine now than man, twisted and evil."

    6. Re:I'm not sure about this. by stonewallred · · Score: 1

      Try being an ex-con suffering from PTSD and see how many folks can ID with that.

  4. Why use Linden Labs? by machinelou · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I've been following a lot of similar stories recently and I don't understand why agencies and institutions wouldn't build on an opensource infrastructure that they can control (e.g., something like openlife). What happens if Linden labs goes belly-up?

    1. Re:Why use Linden Labs? by westlake · · Score: 4, Informative

      I've been following a lot of similar stories recently and I don't understand why agencies and institutions wouldn't build on an opensource infrastructure that they can control (e.g., something like openlife)

      Linden Labs has experience and resources.

      Linden Labs clients include:

      British Petroleum
      Wells Fargo
      NOAA
      The government of Ontario
      Naval Undersea Warfare Center
      CIGNA
      Kraft
      Unilever
      Disney
      Northrop Grumman
      Kelly Services
      Cisco
      IBM
      Intel
      Microsoft
      Toshiba
      British Telecom
      Nokia

      Second Life Work

      Openlife is in beta and looks it.

    2. Re:Why use Linden Labs? by vadim_t · · Score: 2, Informative

      Because opensim is unprofessional.

      Quality-wise, the existent grids run very badly, with very common crashes, asset loss, bad performance, region crossing issues...

      Development is unprofessional. The developers pulled an april fools day prank that caught by suprise several companies depending on their work. It wasn't an april fools day checkin either, but a change prepared weeks in advance, set to trigger on April 1. Which made it seriously hard to figure out what was going on.

      Then there are the rumors about the developers keeping certain functionality intentionally broken, to make sure the project is hard to use seriously for free.

      As much as I like Open Source, the fact is that at the time, Linden Labs has a much better infrastructure, better code, and a much better team to support it.

    3. Re:Why use Linden Labs? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      Did you read the link you posted? The prank was in the SVN branch only, only the developers should be using it. Certainly no one should show it to clients/investors.

    4. Re:Why use Linden Labs? by vadim_t · · Score: 1

      Did you read the link you posted? The prank was in the SVN branch only, only the developers should be using it. Certainly no one should show it to clients/investors.

      Yeah. However, there are several problems with that.

      First, as far as I know, there's no really stable, production level opensim code yet. It's under constant development, and still incomplete. That means that if you're building on opensim, it's quite likely that you'll have to track the latest development, and that means tracking trunk. Stabilization would be done by deciding which revision of trunk to use.

      Second, the problem was a breach of trust. It's not that trunk was buggy. It's that the programmers intentionally introduced a change that would break things in advance, set to trigger on a specific date. Which made it very hard to figure what was going on. Imagine that come April 1, the server suddenly starts behaving oddly, exhibiting a bug it never had before, and going back to the code from a week ago that worked perfectly fine yesterday still doesn't help.

      Imagine yourself as a programmer on that team. Would you find it funny after you spent hours trying to figure it out? How would you explain to your boss what the problem was? How would you know that with a deadline getting closer, you wouldn't have to waste more time on dealing with another joke?

    5. Re:Why use Linden Labs? by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      I've been following a lot of similar stories recently and I don't understand why agencies and institutions wouldn't build on an opensource infrastructure that they can control (e.g., something like openlife). What happens if Linden labs goes belly-up?

      You watch the video. Hopefully you watch it before that though.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    6. Re:Why use Linden Labs? by SL+Baur · · Score: 1

      Did you read the link you posted? The prank was in the SVN branch only, only the developers should be using it. Certainly no one should show it to clients/investors.

      Yeah. However, there are several problems with that.

      I saw a lot of nerd rage, but nothing that described what the prank actually did. What did it do? Give everyone foot long penises coming out of their foreheads? (If that's what it was, I can understand the anger).

    7. Re:Why use Linden Labs? by zwei2stein · · Score: 1

      It deformed avatars. Basically, it looked like bug in avatar rendering code.

      Anger is related to trying to 'fix' that bug for hours and/or to having several presentations fail because it looked seriously bugged.

      --
      -- Technology for the sake of technology is as pathetic as eschewing technology because it's technology.
    8. Re:Why use Linden Labs? by SL+Baur · · Score: 1

      There was one screen shot with a bunch of sticks on the screen (nothing like I would consider a stick figure ala xkcd) and nothing remotely resembling an avatar. Was that what happened?

      I haven't ever done Second Life or OpenSims, so I'm just trying to understand the issue. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but is one of the key goals of the game to change/improve/customize your avatar's appearance? If that is the case, I retract my previous statement regarding "nerd rage".

      If I logged into World of Warcraft on April 1st and found myself wearing greys instead of my (hard earned) purples I suppose I would be angry too.

      It seems like a strange joke. Part of the fun of April fools is to make a joke that has a _slight_ ring of truth, but that is easily detected. Then everyone laughs and gets on with their lives. If they fooled around with a basic game goal in a non-obvious manner, I can very much understand people's anger.

    9. Re:Why use Linden Labs? by vadim_t · · Score: 1

      There was one screen shot with a bunch of sticks on the screen (nothing like I would consider a stick figure ala xkcd) and nothing remotely resembling an avatar. Was that what happened?

      Yep

      I haven't ever done Second Life or OpenSims, so I'm just trying to understand the issue. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but is one of the key goals of the game to change/improve/customize your
      avatar's appearance? If that is the case, I retract my previous statement regarding "nerd rage".

      Second Life by itself has no goal. It's software providing a "virtual world", whose users may have whatever goal they want to.

      It's like for instance, a web forum, or IRC server. By itself it has no goal, it just provides a forum or a chat server. Its users may have a goal, which may be having a political discussion, or posting pictures of lolcats.

      That said, most people in Second Life like looking good, where what is "good" depends on the person. If you wanted to look like a night elf, you could. Looking like a humanoid cat, executive in a suit, or a dragon are also possible. Most people would be upset if one day they logged in and found themselves to look bizarrely wrong.

      For a presentation this would be undesirable in the same way that a projector that's not working, the audio system creating feedback, or the software being demonstrated crashing would.

    10. Re:Why use Linden Labs? by SL+Baur · · Score: 1

      That said, most people in Second Life like looking good, where what is "good" depends on the person. If you wanted to look like a night elf, you could. Looking like a humanoid cat, executive in a suit, or a dragon are also possible. Most people would be upset if one day they logged in and found themselves to look bizarrely wrong.

      That's exactly what I meant. Thanks for the explanation and now I understand. It was a dumb and rotten "joke".

    11. Re:Why use Linden Labs? by Dutch+Gun · · Score: 1

      Guild Wars did "stick figures for a day" as a joke on April 1, 2008.

      --
      Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
  5. my company switch from gyms to wellness web pages by peter303 · · Score: 1

    My company used to pay for gym membership to improve health. This was to counterweight the countyr club golf memberships provided to executives. But a few years back they swithc the wellness program to monthy web pages. Claims this is an improvement because everyone gets these announcements!

  6. "non-religious" Stations of the Cross? by Mr.+Slippery · · Score: 1

    According to the Coming Home page:

    Possible journey activities can be based on these types of well known journey metaphors:

    The labyrinth, Stations of the Cross (non-relgious), TAO, The Artist's Way, Healing walks and paths

    How exactly does one have "non-religious" Stations of the Cross? Taoism, at least, can be approached as a philosophy rather than a religion, but I can't think of any approach to venerating the torture and execution of some ancient rabbi that doesn't involve a belief that the poor guy was some sort of religious sacrifice.

    If the idea is that religious imagery can be useful in treating PTSD, well, fine, let's discuss if that's true, and how we can balance that against First Amendment concerns in a government-funded treatment program. But "non-religious" Stations of the Cross rings about as true as the disclaimer in those ads in the back of local free paper: "Busty Blond Will Make All Your Fantasies Come True! $100/hr. Non-sexual".

    --
    Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
    You cannot wash away blood with blood
  7. What's with the guys head? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    I know that this is slightly off topic, but the character in the pictures is always looking down and to the left. Maybe he is severely depressed or something. I don't see a problem with trying this out, but their screenshots seemed rather depressing.

    1. Re:What's with the guys head? by sealfoss · · Score: 1

      Avatars "look" where the mouse is pointing. He was probably just clicking buttons on the UI.

  8. Then who will cure the Second-Life PTSD? by EEBaum · · Score: 4, Funny

    Perhaps they'll recover from the war-related PTSD, but you've introduced a whole other traumatic situation by bringing Second Life into the mix. How long will it take our brave veterans to get over the horror of bombardment via millions of floating penises?

    --
    -- I prefer the term "karma escort."
    1. Re:Then who will cure the Second-Life PTSD? by Kligat · · Score: 1

      Not to mention Internet Explorer.

  9. As someone who has PTSD by TheBilgeRat · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'd have to say it really is probably up to the individual soldier whether that will work for him or not. Everyone handles it differently, and self-medicates differently. Many of my old comrades cannot watch war-related movies or watch/play FPS video games like COD, GRAW, etc. I say go for it-if it helps just a few people it would be worth it.

    1. Re:As someone who has PTSD by blakedev · · Score: 1

      Agreed. I knew a guy in my brigade who deployed in 2004 (about the time that shit was bad in Iraq). He can watch those movies and play video games, but he spent his entire enlistment bonus on meth. What I'm worried about is the habit that trolls have for say, exposing vets to pictures of gore or dead soldiers (Though I've never been on Second Life so I don't know how that works).

      --
      QamuIs Heg qaq law' lorvIs yInqaq puS
    2. Re:As someone who has PTSD by slimshady945 · · Score: 1

      Many of my old comrades cannot watch war-related movies or watch/play FPS video games like COD, GRAW, etc.

      May not be PTSD. I can't watch or play them because something really simple gets jacked up, e.g. uniforms, or the sound is off. (An AK-47 does NOT sound like an M16.)

    3. Re:As someone who has PTSD by TheBilgeRat · · Score: 1

      In the movies world or TV world of military portrayal, that is always a joke for those in the know...that and how every explosion is a massive fuel bomb.

  10. Ban Hammer by stimpleton · · Score: 1

    Linden Labs attitude recently, especially with moves to this Adult grid has to be very aggressive with account banning.

    Usually a ban comes from a person on the "G-Team", which appears to be fairly ad-hoc, being non comprimising when a user does something silly, and this is backed up by flame wars outside of SecondLife between G-Team members and users.

    Given a new user could be a soldier unused to the 3D way of things, let alone the foibles of Second Life, I wonder how LL handles that users ability to tow the party line. Or is the user somehow confined to base, in a virtual sense.

    Because I am not sure any contact with the Linden Lab G-Team would be that positive for the soldier.

    --

    In post Patriot Act America, the library books scan you.
  11. Good idea, now extend it ... by SL+Baur · · Score: 1

    If we could only extend this idea to fight all our wars on World of Warcraft PvP servers, that would solve a lot of problems.

  12. Re:Give it a try. by SL+Baur · · Score: 1

    ignorince ... video's ... trebucket ... how-too ... peaked my interest ...

    Don't let this this list limit you. Use your imagination and create.

    I guess spelling and grammar isn't in the curriculum.

  13. ive got one word for you by RobertLTux · · Score: 1

    MEERKAT

    and as a bonus its completely GPL (latest version not available for Linux)

    --
    Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
  14. Second Life = Linden Corruption + Secret laughing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Second Life is definitely *not* a viable platform for long-term businesses. Why? 1. Linden Lab actively holds hands with long-term Griefers like Tizzers Foxchase (Tizzers Teardrop) - aka the SL Woodbury University group. The new CEO Mark Kingdon doesn't seem to mind long-term griefers casually crashing simulators as well as stealing (copybotting) someone else's work and then selling it. 2. Linden Lab staff does not actually appreciate corporations/customers using it's Second Life VW platform - they'd rather laugh their heads off and call people 'losers' behnd their backs. ( Evidence: http://bit.ly/C0VM4 and http://bit.ly/LT7Hv ) 3. Your business can't grow very far in Second Life unless you actively *suck up* to the Linden Regime - applaud every single move made by Linden in order to gain a *HUGE* advantage over the in-world competition. Illegit *Bribing*, basically. ( Source: http://bit.ly/LT7Hv ) Corporations would be better off using some other platform, like Blue Mars and OpenSim, even though both are currently in public beta. Anonymous Coward? More like, if I reveal my identity, Linden Lab will ban me & take my business away, for whistleblowing! Though, they can't really sue me, since my statements are well backed up with evidence.

  15. Good gravy, man! by ex_ottoyuhr · · Score: 1

    You are the kind of person who makes it hard for reasonable opponents of Obama to so much as hold their heads up in public!

    More seriously and less Scottishly, this is a very good idea. Read _Achilles in Vietnam_ to learn more about PTSD, and you'll see the point. Remember the need for cameraderie mentioned above; PTSD sufferers need to be able to communicate, and this is the most convenient way. Controlled reenactment of battlefield events would be a very useful addition, as a key part of PTSD treatment is learning to overcome and work past the traumatizing event, but this is a real step forward. Heck, the military acknowledging that PTSD so much as _exists_ is a real step forward.

    Also remember that the military is managing to look after itself reasonably well under this administration. We should be very glad that Obama's tsars don't have much interest in the army, and thus he's left Gates in office...

  16. Re:Easier Solution by ex_ottoyuhr · · Score: 1

    Not that many IEDs in WOW, at least unless the dwarves have been up to something. :)