Can VR Help Cure The Mental Health Epidemic?

Nicholas Fearn discovers how virtual reality is being used to treat mental health conditions – and also help non-sufferers experience them

- Nicholas Fearn

The world is on the verge of a mental health crisis. According to the World Health Organisation, the number of people diagnosed with a neurological condition is accelerating. There were around 416 million people reported to be suffering from depression or anxiety in 1990 – by 2013, that number had grown to 615 million.

With so many people being diagnosed with mental health conditions, there’s an increasing strain on health institutions to take action. Treatment is expensive, and as we’ve seen here in the UK, funding for mental health is often given lower priority than conditions such as cancer and heart disease. Even if care is available, many people are afraid to seek help because of the stereotypes associated with mental health. The Counselling Directory claims that only 230 of 300 people diagnosed will seek the help of a specialist.

However, there is a potential solution to both limited healthcare resources and people’s reluctance to seek professional help: virtual reality.

THE VIRTUAL CLINIC

VR treatments are a new phenomenon in the world of healthcare, and many concepts are in the early stages. The Institute for Creative Technologies at the University of Southern California is one of the organisations interested in using VR to treat mental illness. It has developed Brave mind, a VR-based exposure therapy tool to treat post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other neurological conditions.