Virtual Reality and the COVID Mental Health Crisis

scientificamerican, 15/11/2020

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Beesens TEAM

Virtual Reality and the COVID Mental Health Crisis

"I am being challenged daily. As a frontline doctor, I find that the COVID-19 pandemic has not only tested my clinical abilities but also strained my capacity to bear witness to grievous suffering. This suffering extends well beyond the physical distress of hospitalized patients battling the virus. The pandemic has also spawned a mental health crisis beyond anything I have seen in 25 years of caring for patients. The statistics are overwhelming: CDC research indicates that 31 percent of Americans have reported anxiety and depression during the pandemic, and 11 percent have considered suicide. A national shortage in mental health clinicians existed before COVID-19. Now, health care organizations must decide how to rapidly scale and deploy behavioral health care to a geographically widespread and increasingly isolated populace. There is no time to wait for expansion of the mental health workforce.
Doctors are now turning to an unlikely solution: virtual reality (VR). When most people think of VR, they think of a gaming technology—a toy for pent-up teens to play first-person shooter games in their parents’ basement. But for decades, scientists around the world have been quietly discovering the surprising health benefits of VR for ailments ranging from severe pain, to PTSD, to substance use, to existential anxiety. Over 5,000 studies reveal that VR has an uncanny ability to diminish pain, steady nerves, and boost mental health—and best of all, it can be administered at home without a trained clinician..." Lire la suite