Expose, Distract, Motivate and Measure: Virtual Reality Games for Health
Albert Skip · 2006
The rapidly growing popularity of digital games has now added new momentum to the vision of creating immersive and interactive Virtual Reality (VR) experiences for a wide range of human health needs beyond just the entertainment value that comes from playing games! In addition to the readily intuitive application area of game-based learning for education and training purposes (Prensky, 2001), the mental health and rehabilitation fields stand to substantially benefit from advances in this area. The integration of game play and technology with VR-based approaches for clinical assessment, treatment and rehabilitation offers powerful options that could revolutionize standard practices in these fields (Rizzo & Kim, 2005). At the present time, VR games can be said to offer specific attributes or ingredients that are well matched to the needs of many mental health and rehabilitation targets. In general terms, these fundamental attributes include: • EXPOSURE - The capacity to use or “mod” existing game titles to provide patients with basic exposure to contextually relevant stimuli useful for habituation therapy with anxiety disorders such as phobias and PTSD. • DISTRACTION - The capacity to provide “active” distraction via engaging game play that can be used to draw a patient’s attention away from a painful or uncomfortable medical procedure such as during burn wound care, intravenous insertions and chemotherapy. • MOTIVATION - The capacity to integrate gaming features into VR-based motor (or cognitive) rehabilitation systems to enhance a patient’s motivation when they are confronted with a repetitive series of exercise challenges designed to foster recovery following a stroke, brain injury or other forms of central nervous system dysfunction.