XBox Game To Help Combat PTSD

A therapeutic game has been developed by US Army doctors for soldiers suffering from combat related post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The therapeutic game, called Virtual Iraq or Virtual Afghanistan, was developed from the Xbox game Full Spectrum Warrior, a combat tactical simulation game.
The games use images delivered via a head-mounted display panel to plunge soldiers back into combat zones in Iraq or Afghanistan to recreate the traumatic experiences they had while at war, the project’s lead researcher Albert Rizzo said Tuesday to AFP.
“At first blush, it seems counter-intuitive: why would you make somebody go through an approach where one of your goals is to make the patient feel a little bit anxious as they revisit their traumatic experiences?” the University of Southern California professor told reporters.
Researchers have found that by progressively raising a patient’s feelings of anxiety up to a moderate level while simultaneously encouraging the patient to mentally process and talk about their traumatic experience, they can bring down anxiety levels and decrease PTSD symptoms.


Creators of the Virtual PTSD Experience at the National Center for Telehealth and Technology, or T2, hope the program will cut down on stigma associated with the “signature wounds” of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan: PTSD and Traumatic Brain Injury.
“I have seen too many warriors who come home from a deployment and silently suffer for years before they get help,” said Greg Reger, a clinical psychologist and acting chief of T2’s Innovative Technology Applications Division, to AFP.
Once logged in to the Virtual PTSD Experience, service members will encounter a visitor’s center on “Psychological Health Island,” which will lead them through the three sections of the program: causes, symptoms, and next steps. Throughout the virtual experience, users can click on brochure links that will take them to informational web sites, connect them with mental-health facilities to schedule an appointment or lead them through relaxation exercises.
Those manifestations include recurring nightmares and flashbacks, emotional numbing, avoidance of places that stir memories and hyper-vigilance. An estimated 20 to 30 percent of soldiers who have fought in Iraq or Afghanistan come home with the mental disorder, according to US military estimates.
Three randomized control trials of the virtual reality therapy games are currently underway. In one study, 16 of 20 soldiers who were treated with the simulator game developed by Rizzo and others at USC’s Institute for Creative Technology no longer met PTSD criteria at the end of therapy.