A Virtual Reality Simulator to Detect Acrophobia in Work-at-Height Situations

Chardonnet, Jean-Rémy; Loreto, Cédric Di; Ryard, Julien; Housseau, Alain

doi:10.1109/vr.2018.8446395

Cited by 4 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…The VR simulator presented in [24] is not dedicated to therapy but to companies that want to see if their employees suffer from acrophobia. The virtual environment displays a moving platform and a virtual ladder placed on the top of a pole, at 11 m above ground.…”

Section: Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy Systems Developed In the Ac...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Immersive Phobia Therapy through Adaptive Virtual Reality and Biofeedback

Moldoveanu,

Mitruț,

Jinga

et al. 2023

Applied Sciences

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Phobias are a type of anxiety disorder characterized by severe fear of objects and situations. In recent years, virtual reality exposure therapy has emerged as a safer and more convenient method of treating phobias, with the same rate of success as classical therapy, the in vivo exposure to stimuli. Following extensive research concerning the available technologies and after studying the state of the art in the field, we developed the PhoVR (Phobia therapy through Virtual Reality) system during a 2-year long project that involved the participation of a technical university, a biology faculty, and an industry partner specialized in designing 3D applications. Our final prototype incorporates scenarios for acrophobia, claustrophobia, and fear of public speaking therapy, in which the user is required to perform gamified tasks and navigate virtual reality environments with biophysical data acquisition (electrodermal activity and heart rate), automatic anxiety level classification, biofeedback integrated into the scenes’ elements, the dynamic adaptation of the virtual environments, and relaxation techniques made available at any moment. The control panel is an application dedicated to psychotherapists for managing patients’ profiles and therapy sessions. The feedback obtained in a qualitative survey with subjects and psychotherapists who evaluated the prototype validated the system and provided suggestions for refinement.

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Section: Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy Systems Developed In the Ac...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Immersive Phobia Therapy through Adaptive Virtual Reality and Biofeedback

Moldoveanu,

Mitruț,

Jinga

et al. 2023

Applied Sciences

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…The VR simulator described in [21] is not dedicated to therapy, but to companies which want to test if their workers developed acrophobia. The virtual environment is composed of an aerial device with a moving platform and a virtual ladder placed on top of an electric pole, at 11.6 meters above ground.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

A serious VR game for acrophobia therapy in an urban environment

Anton

Mitruț

Moldoveanu

et al. 2020

2020 IEEE International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Virtual Reality (AIVR)

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Much of the costs and dangers of exposure therapy in phobia treatment can be removed through virtual reality (VR). Exposing people to heights, for instance, might sound easy, but it still involves time and money investments to reach a tall building, mountain or bridge. People suffering from milder forms of acrophobia might not even be treated at all, the cost not being worth it. This paper presents a prototype that allows exposure therapy to be done in a controlled environment, in a more comfortable, quick and cheaper way. By applying acrophobia questionnaires, collecting biophysical data and developing a virtual reality game, we can expose volunteers to heights and analyze if there is any change in their fear and anxiety levels. This way, regardless of the initial anxiety level and phobia severity, we can check if there is any post-therapy improvement and verify if virtual reality is a viable alternative to real-world exposure.

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