Treating psychological and phsyical disorders with VR

We present some applications that therapists have used with patients. Treating psychological disorders is one aspect of a larger application area of VR that we refer to as clinical virtual reality-the direct use of VR as a tool in treating or assessing psychological and physical disorders. Examples of clinical applications that use VR include treatment of phobias, post-traumatic stress disorder in Vietnam War veterans, eating disorders, pain distraction; and physical (stroke and orthopedic) rehabilitation. This article offers some general ideas on how clinical VR applications fundamentally differ from many other VR applications and presents three detailed examples of current clinical VR applications that have moved from the demonstration phase to actual use with patients in a clinical setting.