Not long ago, Marianne Descalzo was terrified of heights. "I used to freak out or feel frozen," she says. "I avoided everything." Today she rides Ferris wheels and climbs on her roof.
The difference? Virtual reality.
As part of an experimental treatment program at the Kaiser-Permanente Medical Group in San Rafael, California, Descalzo and 33 other acrophobic patients donned head-mounted displays and encountered a virtual elevated patio, as well as hills, a bridge over water, and a plank extending from the patio. The patients were asked to walk onto the plank and look down. The challenges may have been virtual, but the patient's reactions were real. Heart rates and blood pressures increased, says Ralph Lamson, PhD, who led the study. After the treatment, 90 percent of the patients achieved self-assigned goals in the real world, such as ascending in a glass elevator.
Lamson is planning additional studies. One project would involve acrophobia and other anxiety disorder conditions. Ralph Lamson: +1 (415) 444 3036.
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