Till now, the technology has been placed very high-priced which is not good. HTC VIVE and Oculus Rift have changed everything with their arrival in the field. The world is celebrating Mental Health Week and it will be worth to look at the potential of Virtual Reality that will be soon realised in this regard. Greg Wadley who is a famous Technologist from the University of Melbourne says that the main use for Virtual Reality has been in the area where the exposure of therapy for phobias and anxieties is.
The technology has improved a lot in the past 20 years, however. VR headsets which are available commercially can help those people who have a fear of public speaking in a much controlled environment. Dr Wadley says that the better technology doesn’t only make the simulations more visually realistic, but can also develop programs which are more behaviourally accurate. Patients who were tested fully of their fears in VR later felt much relived once they are in the real world and facing real time situations. VR is used to simulate real-world environments and on the other hand it can be used to create concepts for visualise abstract.
Dr Wadley’s computer science department at the University of Melbourne is working with the youth mental health clinic named as Orygen in order to provide help by developing Virtual Reality treatments for the young people who comes with the mental issues like psychosis and depression. According to him the next cutting-edge idea is that the phones could be finally be used to find out when the treatment is actually required by the patient. Let us see that how far it does goes from just a handset to the cutting edge health problem solver.
