Virtual Reality treatment to cure Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder by Ioana Madalina Tantareanu

It`s not on a road in Iraq but inside a room at Madigan Army Medical Center, where psychologists plan to begin using virtual reality _ think immersive video games _ to treat post-traumatic stress disorder by recreating the conditions of war.Staff Sgt. Jeff Ebert's entire body flinches as a roadside bomb explodes near his vehicle. Smoke obscures his view. Gunfire rattles around him. That`s how doctors are provided by Virtual-reality therapy with a tool that uses visual, auditory and thermal cues to set the stage for treatment of veterans with the disorder. Post-traumatic stress disorder causes nightmares and flashbacks and it can also be very serious as some victims withdraw from society. Greg Reger,clinical psychologist at Madigan hopes to begin offering the treatment later this summer.He said that "Just about everybody is affected by their deployment experience.The vast majority come home and there's a natural recovery that occurs, but for the significant minority that does need additional help, we do see a number of those individuals here in the clinic." Reger is a former Army captain who recently came off active duty after spending a year in Iraq with the 62nd Medical Brigade. The Office of Naval Research, which in 2005 provided $4 million to several groups to examine how virtual reality can help treat PTSD founded the research. 15 percent to 30 percent of Iraq war veterans are affected by the disorder. Reger said that the Madigan program received a $200,000 grant for its work. During a demonstration at Madigan, Ebert appears visibly jolted when a concussion from a bomb rocks his mock Humvee as he drives it in a military convoy. Ebert, who doesn't suffer from PTSD, sits in a chair atop a low platform that rumbles and shakes to simulate the vehicle's motion where he wears a headset that displays the scene, apreciating the scene "very realistic."The 28-year-old behavioral health specialist from Toledo, Ohio, who returned from a yearlong tour in Iraq in November 2004, said "I had my fair share of convoys."

by Ioana Madalina Tantareanu for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

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