Use of Virtual Reality as a Tool to Overcome the Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder of Pensioners

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to analyze the influence of virtual reality (VR) on overcoming post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) of pensioners suffering from anxiety disorders. PTSD is usually developed after some serious and traumatic event. This may be for example war conflict, flood, rape, fire, death, volcano eruptions, storms, car accidents, various explosions, torture, robberies or assaults. In the first part, the article deals with a theoretical description of VR itself, namely Samsung Gear VR device that was used for the VR therapy. In this part, there is also PTSD described. The main part is about the research itself, which analyzes not only the area of VR influence in overcoming PTSD but also the basic physiological body functions of respondents - the pensioners. The aim of the paper is to research whether it is possible to improve the health status of the monitored seniors through the purposeful help of VR. The results of our psychological tests after the application of the 6 months long research intervention at the time intervals are promising because there are provable decreases in depression stress. Treatment of PTSD is often difficult, take a lot of time and it is performed mostly with anxiolytics or hypnotic sleep medications. This research presents a method that could speed up therapy and also reduce the use of pharmaceuticals which is very important. Discussion and evaluation of the research are included.