Psychiatric Annals Features ICT’s Medical Virtual Reality Work

The current issue of Psychiatric Annals features a summary of ICT-developed virtual reality applications that are being designed and implemented across various points in the military deployment cycle to prevent, identify and treat combat-related PTSD in war veterans. In describing the work surveyed in the article, written by Skip Rizzo and colleagues from ICT’s Medical Virtual Reality team, Emory University and Weill Cornell Medical Center, Rizzo stressed their appeal to young people who are increasingly comfortable in a digital world
“Whether by clinician design or implementation, these tools are now providing opportunities to deliver evidence-based care in formats that may have a wide appeal to members of a society who are increasingly viewing technology not simply as a luxury, but as a natural part of everyday existence,” Rizzo said. “Clinicians who scorn the use of such technological opportunities as somehow subverting an authentic clinical process are likely to find themselves in the same spot as those who thought ‘talking movies’ were just a fad.”
A news story accompanying the article offers perspective from Retired Army Col. Elspeth Cameron Ritchie, MD, MPH, Chief Clinical Officer, District of Columbia Department of Mental Health.
“Our veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have matured in a culture of computer games and virtual worlds,” she said. “As our society becomes more digital, expanding our techniques to mobile applications expands our potential reach as therapists. Written by the world’s expert in the field, Dr. Albert “Skip” Rizzo, this article will be of great utility to clinicians interested in exploring new frontiers with their patients.”