Mar 29 2020
What You Can do to Reduce Your Anxiety About COVID-19

 

What You Can do to Reduce Your Anxiety About COVID-19

 

Since everyone reacts differently to situations like COVID-19, it is important to be prepared to handle any type of anxiety or fear you may be feeling at this time. When things in your life become so uncertain and you don’t know what is going to happen, you may begin to panic or have severe anxiety. And one of the worst things about this crisis is that most of the world is on lockdown so we cannot just go to a friend’s house, to the gym, or whatever else you typically do to deal with your stress.

However, that does not mean that you cannot do something to deal with your emotions. First of all, you don’t have to go to the gym to work out. Even if you don’t have any kind of exercise equipment at home. One of the best ways to exercise is to walk. Yes, you can go outside for a walk. Just stay at least six feet away from anyone you happen to see. Another way to get some exercise and enjoy the outdoors is gardening or yard work. Since the weather is getting warmer, go ahead and start getting your garden ready or just walk around the yard and pick up sticks, rocks, and other debris that may have made its way into your yard during the winter.

Don’t forget to talk to people. Just because you are quarantined does not mean you cannot communicate with your loved ones. Use Facetime, videochat, text, or just talk on the phone to friends, family, or anyone. Not only will you feel better, you will make the other person happy as well. Loneliness is real. Do not isolate yourself so much that you are not talking to anyone at all. Another way to help your anxiety is to use virtual reality therapy. Whether that means connecting with a therapist on telementalhealth or coming into a clinic, like the Virtual Reality Medical Center in La Jolla, Dr. Brenda Wiederhold is available to treat any type of anxiety management.

 

Talking to Your Kids About COVID-19

 

Your kids may not seem like they are anxious about this COVID-19 crisis, but they probably have a lot of questions about what is going on. For example, they are probably wondering why they have to stay home from school. Although many kids like this vacation from their daily routine, most are probably getting anxious about what is going on. The younger ones that are not in school yet may even be wondering why their siblings are home and why they cannot go see their friends or go to the park.

Do not just tell them not to worry about it and try to shield them from the COVID-19 issues. Because we all know that you cannot stop someone from worrying by telling them not to worry. In fact, in many cases, it will make them worry more. Listen to your child’s questions and answer them as best as you can. If you do not know the answer to their question, go on trusted sites like the CDC and look for the answers and ways to help your children cope. Without overwhelming your child with too much information, go ahead and let them know what is going on because what is going on in their imagination may be much worse than the truth.

If your child is really having a hard time dealing with things, it is important to get them some professional help. Although most mental health providers are not taking appointments right now because of the quarantine, you can always find online counseling. Most online counseling can be done without ever having to go to the office and can all be done from home. In addition, talk to Dr. Brenda Wiederhold from the Virtual Reality Medical Center about her options to help during this COVID-19 lockdown.

 

Taking the Anxiety Out of COVID-19 for Those with Pre-Existing Anxiety

 

During these troubling times, it is difficult for anyone to deal with their anxiety and stress. Those with pre-existing anxiety disorders can really have a tough time with the COVID-19 crisis. But there are things you can do to help yourself or others who may not be handling the situation well.

First of all, turn off the news. Watching too much coverage about COVID-19 can make anyone anxious. While it is good to be informed, it is more important to take a break from the constant worry and think about other things for a while. Your mental health needs a break sometimes.

Talk to someone if you feel like you are becoming overwhelmed. Even if you already have a therapist, they may not be available to you right now. Many mental health providers are not taking appointments right now except for virtual visits or online counseling. If your therapist does not offer this kind of help, contact one that does.

There are many out there and you don’t even need an appointment for most of them. Then you can talk to them by text, phone, chat, or videochat.   Many health plans are also relaxing their payment schedules for virtual visits during this time of “shelter in place”.

Another example would be to use virtual reality therapy. This type of therapy involves using virtual reality to expose you to your fears gradually. It works extremely well with anxiety disorders and phobias. Dr. Brenda Wiederhold of the Virtual Reality Medical Center offers treatment for all types of anxiety, phobias, and pain management.  In addition, there are  relaxation apps that one can find on the app store such as Calm, Headspace and Kardia that may help get you through these difficult times.  Remember, now more than ever, we must be mindful of our mental well-being.

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Jul 31 2019
Dr. Brenda K. Wiederhold Wins Satava Award

Satava Award

We are excited to announce that, Dr. Brenda K. Wiederhold, Chief Executive Officer of the Interactive Media Institute in San Diego, CA has been awarded the 11th Annual Satava Award at the 2005 Medicine Meets Virtual Reality (MMVR) conference. The conference, now in its 13th year serves as an international forum for physicians, computer scientists and educators to present research on data-centered solutions to health care problems. Dr. Wiederhold was honored for her continuous effort to further the application of advanced technologies and Virtual Reality (VR) for patient care. This is the first time that the award has been presented for work in the Mental Health Care field and only the second time that it has been awarded to a female researcher.

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Nov 10 2018
Top 10 Developments as We Move into Third Decade of Virtual Reality…

https://healthmanagement.org/c/healthmanagement/issuearticle/virtual-reality-clinic-a-case-study

 

The growing role of VR in healthcare.

How has VR developed and what potential does it have for future healthcare?

In the 1990s, there were no resources dedicated to virtual reality (VR) and behavioural healthcare – no journals, no clinics, no conferences, no training programmes and only few advanced technologies. Today, we find ourselves in the midst of a new exciting and challenging era of technology-enhanced behavioural healthcare…

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Nov 10 2018
Top 10 Developments as We Move into Third Decade of Virtual Reality…

https://healthmanagement.org/c/healthmanagement/issuearticle/virtual-reality-clinic-a-case-study

 

The growing role of VR in healthcare.

How has VR developed and what potential does it have for future healthcare?

In the 1990s, there were no resources dedicated to virtual reality (VR) and behavioural healthcare – no journals, no clinics, no conferences, no training programmes and only few advanced technologies. Today, we find ourselves in the midst of a new exciting and challenging era of technology-enhanced behavioural healthcare…

admin 0 Comments
Dec 19 2017
Encompassing Mental Health

San Diego, CA: On September 29th, 2017, Interactive Media Institute (IMI) traveled to Riverside, California to present at the annual Encompassing Mental Health (EMH) conference. Organized by Reach Out and the Inland Health Professions Coalition—a youth development organization—this event educated high school juniors and seniors in the Moreno Valley area on behavioral health practice, pathway, and occupations. IMI’s representative, Ian Miller, spoke to the conference attendees about the use of virtual reality in behavioral health interventions and the importance of increasing access to mental health services in their community. Additionally, the attendees participated in a group discussion about destigmatizing mental illness. When asked about what they had learned, one student planning to study psychology in college said “I’d never heard of virtual reality therapy until today, but it’s an interesting new field in psychology!” While receiving a demonstration on the use of virtual reality relaxation in the treatment of anxiety disorders, another attendee said “It’s so cool that I can just put on this headset and sit on a beach to relax.”

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Aug 30 2016
Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/08/exposure-therapy/496547/

Exposure therapy, a form of cognitive behavioral therapy, involves subjecting patients to increasing amounts of things they fear, or otherwise hope to avoid. It is one of the great success stories of mental health, and it’s not just for phobias…

Recently, a more palatable route has been introduced with virtual reality. The Virtual Reality Medical Center in San Diego, for example, offers VR therapy for all manner of fears. Heights, driving, needles and blood, spiders, enclosed spaces—you name it, they treat it. First steps in traditional phobia treatment sometimes involve imagining fearful scenarios, but a patient’s mind is naturally resistant to those thoughts and will go to some lengths to avoid fleshing out terrifying visions. Virtual reality scenarios have proved useful in social phobias, wherein patients have a debilitating fear of interacting with other people.

www.vrphobia.eu

www.vrphobia.com

www.fearofflyingexpert.com

+1 858 642 0267

frontoffice@vrphobia.com

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Jun 10 2015
Interns Attend BE.VR in Brussels

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Every two months, Virtual Reality in Belgium (BE.VR) hosts a meet-up in which new ideas and innovations are introduced and shared with members of the virtual reality community. On Thursday, June 4th, new interns William Zhu, Emily LaFond, and Miranda Lin attended this event that featured various presentations from VR companies.  They were even given the opportunity to try their new software and products! Here is what they had to say:  

 

“The Virtual Reality in Belgium (BE.VR) conference was a rather unique and unexpected event that I had the honor to attend during my internship with VRMI. It was eye opening to see how far the developers have come to creating a virtual world with tools such as Oculus Rift. Trying on the devices felt surreal. It felt as if another world suddenly emerged in front of my eyes.

Although most people are excited about virtual reality for the entertainment aspect of it, and I won’t deny that I am either, I see a lot of potential for this in other fields. For example, the unprecedented improvement from Oculus can be the next big thing for virtual medical programs, allowing professionals to deal with patients that suffer from PTSD and various phobias more efficiently. With the continuing and rapid advancement of our technology, I can see an increasing demand for virtual medics every day. This could be the future of psychology. Furthermore, virtual reality can play a huge role in training purposes, whether it is for military, police, firefighters, etc. It can sufficiently mimic the situation and trick your brain into believing the scenario. With virtual reality, we will have more trained and better prepared law enforcers and public servants!

Virtual reality has garnered a lot of attention lately from the public, which makes me feel optimistic about the future of this field of technology. It could be a game changer!”

-William Zhu

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Intern Will Zhu trying out a product from The Big Bad Wolf, a Belgian based VR company. Photo courtesy of BE.VR

 

“The Belgium Virtual Reality Meetup was a great way to be introduced to the industry. Prior to the event, I had little knowledge of virtual reality and its use in society. I understand that virtual reality (VR) is an innovative and fast-growing industry that does not entirely dedicate itself to healthcare and therapy. In fact, the majority of VR presented at the event was focused on media purposes including the video gaming and film production industries. We heard from about five different companies and the products they offer. Most of them create software for better VR and more realistic simulations.

I had the opportunity of trying out some of the products before the presentations began. Their dedication and excitement for their demos was overwhelming, which only reinforces their passion for virtual reality. Most companies were based out of Belgium, however, there were others from various parts of Europe including Denmark and France. It was exciting to see the diversity among the products within the virtual reality industry. Although most of the presentations were geared toward the gaming and film industries, I realize VR’s potential for enhancing healthcare treatments specifically for mental health and pain management. The innovation and further development of VR has no intention of slowing down, providing VRMI with an optimistic future!”

-Emily LaFond

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Conference attendee experiencing Vector VR’s driving simulation through the Oculus Rift. Photo courtesy of BE.VR

 

“The virtual reality event on Thursday was very impressive. It was inspirational to see how VR can be applied to various areas. For example, the ASPIC Technologies group showed us a demo of their virtual reality software, which can be applied in the film or gaming industries. The scenes are so realistic that you forget it is indeed virtual reality. They also presented another technology involving human action. In this virtual reality scene, there were three cubes with different colors that were mixed together in a box and I could use my hands to separate them. After using these demos, I could begin to compare the various products and determine the one that appeared most realistic.

In addition to my hands-on experience, I also had the chance to talk to the Vection VR group. The group is aiming to use the Oculus Rift to create vivid driving scenes, enhancing the customer’s experience. This technology can be used for driving schools, racing practices, and at-home video games. Another fascinating company was PsyNAPS, who is aiming to use their new technology to percept the neural process and action behaviour in order to develop treatment exercise.

Although the virtual reality is very impressive, you can still feel the difference when the scene is moving. For example, the cube and racing experience I tried did not entirely sync with my movement. If the VR cannot give the same experience to the patient as reality does, then we need to be more cautious when evaluating the effectiveness of the treatment. I also had the chance to talk to a woman at the conference who is doing marketing for her VR company.  I admired her methods and hope that VRMI can continue to market itself in Europe as our treatment has proven to be helpful to our patients.”

-Miranda Lin 

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Jul 29 2014
Advances in Virtual Reality and Anxiety Disorders – Press Release

Brenda K Wiederhold, President of Virtual Reality Medical Institute (Belgium) and Interactive Media Institute (California) together with Stéphane Bouchard, Professor, Université du Québec en Outaouais are pleased to announce the publication of their most recent book by Springer:  Advances in Virtual Reality and Anxiety Disorders.  The book is part of a series on Anxiety and Related Disorders, edited by Martin M. Antony, Professor and Chair, Department of Psychology, Ryerson University in Toronto, Canada. The interactive computer-generated world of virtual reality has been successful in treating phobias and other anxiety-related conditions, in part because of its distinct advantages over traditional in vivo exposure. Yet many clinicians still think of VR technology as it was in the 1990s–bulky, costly, and technically difficult–with little knowledge of its evolution toward more modern, evidence-based, practice-friendly treatment.

These updates, and their clinical usefulness, are the subject of Advances in Virtual Reality and Anxiety Disorders, a timely guidebook geared toward integrating up-to-date VR methods into everyday practice. Introductory material covers key virtual reality concepts, provides a brief history of VR as used in therapy for anxiety disorders, ad­dresses the concept of presence, and explains the side effects, known as cybersickness, that affect a small percentage of clients. Chapters in the book’s main section detail current techniques and review study findings for using VR in the treatment of:

 

·                     Claustrophobia.

·                     Panic disorder, agoraphobia, and driving phobia.

·                     Acrophobia and aviophobia.

·                     Arachnophobia.

·                     Social phobia.

·                     Generalized anxiety disorder and OCD.

·                     PTSD.

·                     Plus clinical guidelines for establishing a VR clinic.

 

An in-depth framework for effective (and cost-effective) therapeutic innovations for entrenched problems, Advances in Virtual Reality and Anxiety Disorders will find an engaged audience among psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, and mental health counselors.

Please visit http://www.springer.com/psychology/book/978-1-4899-8022-9 to find out more about this new publication or to order your paper copy or eBook.

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Sep 4 2013
Use VR Handhelds in Mass Casualty Disasters

Use VR Handhelds in Mass Casualty Disasters

How can governments and health organizations effectively prepare to handle mass casualty disasters? In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and hospitals have plans in place to handle people’s physical health needs, yet the mental health needs of survivors often get too little attention, too late.

To read the full article see: Use VR Handhelds in Mass Casualty Disasters.

 

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Dec 5 2011
2011 Winter Editorial

Journal of CyberTherapy & Rehabilitation

Winter 2011, Volume 4, Issue 4

 

How Can we Help preserve Mental Capital?

First, let me define what I mean by the concept of mental wealth or mental capital. The Foresight Project on Mental Health and Well-being says that it “encompasses a person’s cognitive and emotional resources. It includes their cognitive ability, how flexible and efficient they are at learning, and their ‘emotional intelligence,’ such as their social skills and resilience in the face of stress. It therefore conditions how well an individual is able to contribute effectively to society, and also to experience a high personal quality of life.” The study focused on the U.K., but the 20-year trends cited as affecting the mental wealth of that country are relevant to the rest of the EU, the U.S., and other parts of the world. Trends include the aging of the population (increasing dementia), changes in the global economy (rise of China and India, need for more training and work-life balance), the changing nature and expectations of society and public services (balance of responsibility), and new science and technology (equal access to their benefits).

These same themes emerge in the resulting study article, “The mental wealth of nations,” by Beddington et al., which reported on the group’s evaluation of the scientific evidence to produce this independent assessment involving 450 experts from 16 countries. The authors of this paper urged development of initiatives to support early diagnosis and treatment of childhood learning problems, workplace environments that promote mental health and programs that advance learning among elders to slow cognitive decline. They noted, “How a nation develops and uses its mental capital not only has a significant effect on its economic competitiveness and prosperity but is also important for mental health and well- being and social cohesion and inclusion.”

Pointing to a disproportionate share of investment in mental health relative to its disease burden, the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) created the Grand Challenges in Global Mental Health, identifying research priorities for the next 10 years that will make a difference in people’s mental health. These 25 specific challenges are grouped into broad goals that seek to:

  • Identify root causes, risk and protective factors
  • Advance prevention and implementation of early interventions
  • Improve treatments and expand access to care
  • Raise awareness of the global burden
  • Build human resource capacity
  • Transform health-system and policy responses

NIMH lists guiding principles for funding such research:

  • Use a life-course approach to study
  • Use system-wide approaches to address suffering
  • Use evidence-based interventions
  • Understand environmental influences

So how can we, as clinical and research professionals with spe- cialties in, for example, psychology, physical medicine and rehabilitation, or autism, help our clients boost their mental capital?

 

  1.  Improved access to education can help: “The [Foresight] Project has identified a number of technologies … ubiquitous and mobile technologies; artificial intelligence; assessment technologies; and tools to support teachers in designing and exchanging learning activities.” A virtual environment to help children with autism learn to cross the street is one example of how we can use the technolo- gies we espouse for early intervention, the most cost-effective way to prevent mental ill health.
  2.  Although the mechanisms are not yet understood, a growing number of studies show that physical exercise may prevent or mitigate the effects of depression, and a Stanford University study showed that a virtual representation of one’s self gaining or losing weight in proportion to the exercise completed motivated volunteers to complete more exercise.
  3.  While we are just beginning to debate the legal and ethical im- plications of using pharmacological (smart drugs) means of improving mental wealth, use of these drugs in controlled clinical trials and publication of results that show minimal side effects from long-term use will pave the way for their mainstreaming.
  4. Neurocognitive activation via cognitive training is a promising area of investigation, as I reported in my recent article co-authored with Dr. Mark Wiederhold. With the aid of fMRI-safe Virtual Reality goggles, we can study the brain while a patient interacts with a virtual environment, and learn how to tailor treatments to pro- duce the desired activations in that individual’s brain.
  5.  Finally, I would encourage you to continue to advocate for mental health funding by governments. As the Foresight study authors noted, “… a cross-governmental approach is needed to realize the full benefits … Interventions may have long timescales before they see any returns. Implementing these recommendations will require significant changes in the nature of governance, placing mental capital and well-being at the heart of policy-making.”

 

 

Brenda K. Wiederhold, Ph.D., MBA, BCIA

Editor-in-Chief, Journal of CyberTherapy & Rehabilitation

Virtual Reality Medical Institute

www.vrphobia.eu

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