Virtual Reality Used to Treat Post-Traumatic Stress

This is no video game, nor is it a training device. Rizzo and colleagues are developing a psychological tool to treat post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, by bringing soldiers back to the scenes that still haunt them. A similar simulation is in the works for victims of the World Trade Center attacks.
PTSD treatment, the newest frontier in the intersection between virtual reality and mental health, is one of the hot topics this week at the 13th annual Medicine Meets Virtual Reality conference, which began Wednesday in Long Beach, California. Rizzo and others will explore plans to expand virtual reality's role in mental health by adding more elements like touch and the ability to interact with simulations. "The driving vision is a holodeck," Rizzo said. "If you look at the holodeck, and all the things people do in Star Trek, that's what we'd like to be able to do."