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Novel virtual treatment reduces depression
Depression often has a serious impact on our health and social environment. The consequences of the disease can make a normal life almost impossible. Many sufferers therefore try to overcome the disease through therapies and medications. A new virtual therapy could help in the future to fight depression quickly and successfully.
Researchers have long been searching for new effective ways to treat depression. University College London researchers have now found in a continuing study that virtual therapy can help treat the mental illness. The experts published the results of their study in the journal "British Journal of Psychiatry Open".
Depression can be helped by a virtual therapy. (Image: romanruzicka / fotolia.com) First virtual therapy in people with mental health problems shows good results
A new therapy could help people with depression to defeat their disease. It is the first time that a virtual therapy is used to treat patients with a mental illness, explain the experts. Scientists at University College London have been suggesting for some years that virtual therapy could help with such diseases. The physicians, in collaboration with ICREA University of Barcelona, conducted a study examining the effects of virtual therapy on depression. The investigation involved fifteen people, all of whom suffered from depression and were receiving treatment, researchers say. The subjects consisted of ten women and five men, all between the ages of 23 and 61 years.
Adult and childish avatar
In the new therapy, the patient was asked to identify with a virtual adult avatar. This was together with a second avatar in the simulation. The second avatar was a small, crying child. The patient was able to communicate with the child via a headset and his movements were transferred to the adult avatar, the scientists explain. This process is called "embodiment". Subjects were told that compassionate sentences can comfort the child. Patients should make the child think of a moment when it was happy. In addition, it should think of a person who loves the little child, explain the researchers. After that, the experiment changed. The patient now embodied the child, the child's avatar responded to movements of the subject. The headset was also changed so that the patient now heard the compassionate words he had previously said to the little child. These spoke the adult avatar with the previously recorded voice of the subject, explain the doctors.
Treatment lasts 45 minutes and requires three sessions a month
The results were promising and patients described the experience as a very strong experience. Of the 15 patients, nine subjects stated that their depression had reduced within one month of the trial, the researchers report. And four of these nine subjects stated that they noticed a clinically significant decline in depression. The rest of the participants found no improvement. The treatments by the avatar lasted 45 minutes and the patients had to attend three sessions. The beneficial effects of the therapy could last for up to a month, says lead author Professor Brewin. People who struggle with anxiety and depression are usually overly self-critical when things go wrong in their lives. In the study, the patients first comfort the child and then hear their own words. Thus, the affected indirectly give themselves compassion. The goal of virtual therapy was to teach patients to feel more compassionate towards themselves and less self-critical, adds Prof. Brewin. We now hope to continue to develop the technique so as to be able to conduct a larger controlled trial so that we can safely determine the clinical benefits of virtual therapy, says co-author Professor Mel Slater. (As)