An Effective Virtual Reality based Remedy for Acrophobia

Abstract

Virtual reality (VR) Exposure Therapy with sophisticated technology has been used in the Psychological treatment. The goal is to design a virtual environment using HCI (HMD) device with an interactive and immersive realistic 3D graphic scenes for exposure therapy of acrophobia that allows patient to sense height and gets used to the fearful feelings .The degree of fear is then used to evaluate the effectiveness of the system before and after therapy with the help of comparison. One may feel a little uneasy and perhaps accelerated heart rate, excessive sweating and shortness of breath, etc. are some of the most common physical symptoms of anxiety upon exposure to height. This extreme or irrational fear of height is called “Acrophobia”. The HMI based simulation is used which used the body sensation elucidation as physical symptoms of anxiety upon exposure to height to predict the results. The test reveals that anxiety level decreases from 16% at first level exposure and 8% at last level exposure. It is concluded from the results that VR exposure therapy is more effective than real exposure therapy and also the post test for VR exposure therapy were significantly better than post real exposure results. This system provides cost effective solution for rehabilitation environment.