Virtual Reality in Mental Health Therapies

In February, Mike, our Coaching Officer, had the opportunity to attend a virtual conference that was about the use of new technology within the NHS. Titled, Virtual Reality in Mental Health, Neurological & Rehabilitative Therapies within the NHS, the conference provided an overview of what is currently happening nationally within the field with speakers contributing from across the country from both practitioner and patient perspectives.

Highlighting the pressures that psychological services are under this conference gave delegates the opportunity to network and discuss how virtual reality is being utilised in a range of innovative and creative ways and to become more aware of the rich body of evidence that is building within this area. 

The presentations included a patient’s experience on the use of VR whilst on her journey through palliative care. She explained how through the immersion into a virtual world of scuba diving not only helped to alleviate pain but also to go some way to experiencing the underwater world, something that unfortunately she is unable to do.

Another contributor described how the project she was representing, had been using VR within the community. Working with residents that had experienced the Grenfell tower fire she explained what they had seen as the restorative potential of VR with their work with both younger and older residents.

Input also came from an academic perspective with two speakers detailing their work around immersive storytelling and how they had taken a co-produced approach to the development of the game that they featured in their presentation.

From a GP practitioners perspective there was a presentation about the use of VR for pain reduction, an area that seemed to have gained a degree of traction within his local commissioning authority.

The final two presentations resonated in different ways. First there was a presentation about the use of VR in MBCT detailing how an eight week course had been developed and how it was being used as a cognitive therapy. The use of this approach evidenced the potential of VR within the broader well-being area. The second presentation of note was about VR Hydrotherapy and was inspirational, the speaker explained how her project had worked with developers to produce a waterproof VR headset that allowed the user to immerse themselves in an underwater VR environment but to also have the physical sensation of being underwater. 

This conference was very useful for gaining a picture of where and how VR is being used across the NHS and its future potential application. What was highlighted was the missing aspect of VR and brain computer interfaces which was surprising given the title of the conference, but this may be reflective of the pace of development.