Efficacy of Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy in the Treatment of Combat PTSD in India.
This was a 6-week project that aimed at understanding the perception of PTSD in India and how VR can help to provide therapy for veterans suffering from PTSD in India.
Trauma- and stressor-related disorders include disorders in which exposure to a traumatic or stressful event is listed explicitly as a diagnostic criterion. Its validation in a setting such as India—a nation prone to considerably traumatic events such as conflict, natural disasters, and sexual violence against women—warrants exploration.
Problem Statement
Combat psychiatry practice calls for special skills and different approaches compared to clinical psychiatry practice due to unique kinds of stressors on the client.
Anyone who joins military service is recruited in an absolutely fit medical condition. The service conditions are unique, wherein they live a regimented lifestyle under tough military laws. However, prolonged exposure to situations of extreme violence during sustained military action, involving a constant threat to one’s own life, a sense of isolation and deprivation due to lack of regular access to family and friends, and many other such unique conditions do impact the psyche of a soldier over a period of time.
Concept
With the understanding gathered, the focus was on how the VRET with the treatment in India with different sociocultural contexts. A tool for the clinician/psychiatrist can be built to understand the patient more effectively. The aim is not to create a First-Person Shooter Game, but a controlled environment that could just go beyond the Vivo and imagined exposure therapy.
For the virtual environment, LOC was chosen as the environment as majority of the soldiers are on service in India. Elements were necessary to be added, which made the environment like LOC and not any terrain like the signage, sounds, fences, etc.
Psychiatrist's Control
For a controlled environment for the psychiatrist, a separate UI panel is used from a screen, which he/she can use to change scenarios in the virtual world for the patient. The controls generated for the ongoing prototype are limited. Psychiatrist sets the scene for the patient and engages him/her with the desired actioned.
