STATEMENT OF CLAIM: "If virtual-reality exposure therapy proves to be clinically validated... it may be more than another tool in the therapists' kit; it may encourage those in need t seek help."
SUBCLAIMS:
Virtual reality to treat PTSD isn't a new idea
This type of therapy- immersion therapy- has a high success rate
Virtual Iraq can be altered to a patients specific needs and traumatic experiences
SUPPORT:
"In 1997, more than twenty years after the Vietnam War ended, researchers in Atlanta unveiled Virtual Vietnam. It dropped viewers into one of two scenarios: a jungle clearing with a “hot” landing zone, or a Huey helicopter, its rotors whirring, its body casting a running shadow over rice paddies, a dense tropical forest, and a river. The graphics were fairly crude, and the therapist had a limited number of sights and sounds to manipulate, but Virtual Vietnam had the effect of putting old soldiers back in the thick of war. Ten combat veterans with long-term P.T.S.D. who had not responded to multiple interventions participated in a clinical trial of Virtual Vietnam, typically lasting a month or two. All of them showed significant signs of improvement, both directly after treatment and in a follow-up half a year later. (P.T.S.D. is assessed on a number of scales, some subjective and others based on the observation of the clinician.)"
"Prolonged-exposure therapy, which falls under the rubric of C.B.T., is at once intuitively obvious and counterintuitive: it requires the patient to revisit and retell the story of the trauma over and over again and, through a psychological process called “habituation,” rid it of its overwhelming power. The idea is to disconnect the memory from the reactions to the memory, so that although the memory of the traumatic event remains, the everyday things that can trigger fear and panic, such as trash blowing across the interstate or a car backfiring—what psychologists refer to as cues—are restored to insignificance. The trauma thus becomes a discrete event, not a constant, self-replicating, encompassing condition."
"When Boyd was finished, the doctor asked him to tell the story again. And, when he was finished that time, to tell it again. As he did, she asked him what he was smelling, and if the enemy was on the roof opposite or on the roof next door, and if there were planes overhead. She wanted to learn the details of his narrative and determine which moments were most troubling to him—she called them “hot spots”—and to figure out how she was going to use the sensory variables embedded in Virtual Iraq."
WARRANTS:
People have basic knowledge of virtual reality/ computer simulation programs
People have a general knowledge of the effects and treatment of PTSD
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