[Online TMD]

… Although phobias and anxiety disorders can be treated effectively using traditional approaches, immersive virtual environments offer a more practical approach in a clinical setting. A typical doctor’s office is no place to keep spiders, alligators, snakes, high places, tight places, or other common fear-inducers. However, these creepy crawlies and uncomfortable architectures are easily available in a VR studio.

This is why our researchers in the Cyberpsychology Lab and at the Canada Research Chair in Clinical Cyberpsychology at the Université du Québec en Outaouais (UQO), Canada, are leveraging immersive virtual environments to help patients with anxiety disorders face and manage their fears in a safe, controlled environment.

Facing Fears
Immersive treatment conditions are created by projecting the virtual environments on the walls, floor, and ceiling of a virtual cave environment, or by using special 3D goggles referred to as HMDs. Everywhere patients look, the environment surrounds them, changing as they react to the scenarios – much as a video game changes based on the choices players make. The applications are in use to treat patients with conditions ranging from simple phobias to social anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder. …

Read the full story here: http://www.onlinetmd.com/tmd0412-fighting-fears-3d-treatments.aspx