Treating Mental Health with Virtual Reality

Published: May 15, 2017
Category: News

Mental health issues affect many of us in our daily lives. Whether it’s from stress or anxiety, depression, or some other form of mental health, it’s something that affects most people in one way or another. It’s estimated that as many as one in five people in the U.S. have a diagnosable mental health condition and while many disorders have specialized treatments that don’t require drugs, not all are that easy to treat. Sometimes doctors have to over-prescribe medication before they get the right result, and sometimes these drugs can have disturbing side effects.
So instead, medical professionals turned to virtual reality (VR) for assistance. VR has been used for decades as a helpful tool in the medical world to deliver therapy in a safe and controlled environment. But, due to its cost and certain technology limitations, it’s not something that is widely on offer.  However, with the introduction of affordable VR headsets onto the market, that could all be about to change and could be seeing a new wave of telemedicine coming our way.  This could include remote teletherapy in which VR is used as a supplementary tool as well as in-clinic VR therapy.
Read the full article featuring Bravemind on Trendin Tech.