How immersive virtual reality can become a key tool to advance research and psychotherapy of eating and weight disorders

Behrens, Simone C.; Streuber, Stephan; Keizer, Anouk; Giel, Katrin Elisabeth

doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2022.1011620

Cited by 6 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 61 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The second major clinical application field for immersive DTx is psychotherapy. XR technology is a first-class tool to design behavioral interventions, particularly for exposure therapy, exposure with response prevention, and cognitive-behavioral therapy (Grochowska et al, 2019), notably in contexts of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorders (PTSD) (Rothbaum and Schwartz, 2002;Kothgassner et al, 2019;Eshuis et al, 2021), eating disorders' body disturbance (Ferrer-García and Gutiérrez-Maldonado, 2012;Riva et al, 2021;Behrens et al, 2022), phobias and social anxiety (Schoneveld et al, 2018;Boeldt et al, 2019;Wechsler et al, 2019). It can help the therapist understand the fictive situation, and assess patient behavior, addressing significant shortcomings of existing therapies (Boeldt et al, 2019).…”

Section: Users and Applicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In immersive interfaces, the experimental metaphor and SoP converge, resulting in a more potent symbolic and enactive experience. Metaphor design holds particular significance in XR interfaces developed for clinical psychotherapy, particularly in the context of exposure therapies for PSTD, eating disorders (Boeldt et al, 2019;Eshuis et al, 2021;Behrens et al, 2022), or social immersive training (Liu et al, 2017;Sahin et al, 2018).…”

Section: Symbolic Enactmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Designing immersive interfaces for clinical applications

Chenais,

Görgen

2024

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Digital immersive technologies have become increasingly prominent in clinical research and practice, encompassing medical communication and technical education, serious games for health, psychotherapy, and interfaces for neurorehabilitation. The worldwide effervescence of digital health and digital therapeutics has prompted the development and testing of numerous applications and interaction methods. Nevertheless, the lack of consistency in the approaches and the peculiarity of the constructed environments contribute to an increasing disparity between the eagerness for new immersive designs and the long-term clinical adoption of these technologies. Several challenges emerge from the collide of virtual environment designers and clinicians. This article seeks to examine the utilization and mechanics of medical immersive interfaces based on extended reality and highlight specific design challenges. The transfer of virtually acquired skills and clinical efficiency is frequently constrained by a combination of perceptual and attractiveness factors. We argue that a multidisciplinary approach to development and testing, along with a comprehensive acknowledgement of the shared mechanisms that underlie immersive training, are essential for the sustainable integration of extended reality into clinical settings. The present review discusses the application of a multilevel sensory framework to extended reality design, with the aim of developing brain centred immersive interfaces tailored for therapeutic and educational purposes. Such a framework must include broader design questions, such as the integration of digital technologies into psychosocial care models, clinical validation, and related ethical concerns. We propose that efforts to bridge the virtual gap should include mixed methodologies and neurodesign approaches, integrating user behavioural and physiological feedback into iterative design phases.

show abstract

Section: Users and Applicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Symbolic Enactmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Designing immersive interfaces for clinical applications

Chenais,

Görgen

2024

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Existing interventions for fear of weight gain and body image, however, aim to improve patient’s perception and cognitions about their current body rather than the expected healthy, normal weight body [15, 16]. Virtual reality (VR) provides the unique opportunity to expose patients to a healthy body while at the same time counteracting avoidance through its multisensory, immersive nature [17].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As VR tools for psychotherapy have progressed, there have been calls to link clinical considerations with technical implementation from the outset, including the choice of hardware and specific software characteristics [17, 18]. Studies using VR for therapeutic applications in eating disorders have recently increased (for reviews, see [19, 20]), but existing setups for virtual body exposure are either technically rough but accessible (e.g., [21, 22]) or complex and bound to the developing laboratory (e.g., [23, 24]).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Virtual Reality Exposure to a Healthy Weight Body Is a Promising Adjunct Treatment for Anorexia Nervosa

Behrens¹,

Tesch²,

Sun³

et al. 2023

Psychother Psychosom

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Introduction/Objective: Treatment results of anorexia nervosa (AN) are modest, with fear of weight gain being a strong predictor of treatment outcome and relapse. Here, we present a virtual reality (VR) setup for exposure to healthy weight and evaluate its potential as an adjunct treatment for AN. Methods: In two studies, we investigate VR experience and clinical effects of VR exposure to higher weight in 20 women with high weight concern or shape concern and in 20 women with AN. Results: In study 1, 90% of participants (18/20) reported symptoms of high arousal but verbalized low to medium levels of fear. Study 2 demonstrated that VR exposure to healthy weight induced high arousal in patients with AN and yielded a trend that four sessions of exposure improved fear of weight gain. Explorative analyses revealed three clusters of individual reactions to exposure, which need further exploration. Conclusions: VR exposure is a well-accepted and powerful tool for evoking fear of weight gain in patients with AN. We observed a statistical trend that repeated virtual exposure to healthy weight improved fear of weight gain with large effect sizes. Further studies are needed to determine the mechanisms and differential effects.

show abstract

“…In psychiatry, VR has been mainly used to treat patients with specific phobia or posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) ( 4 – 8 ). Recently, VR has been widely used to treat various other mental disorders ( 9 – 11 ). However, since VR can cause cyber sickness, caution is needed to use VR for therapeutic intervention ( 12 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Association between anxiety and skin conductance according to the intensity of shaking of virtual reality images

Kim,

Kim

et al. 2023

Front. Psychiatry

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

IntroductionDespite the advantages of virtual reality (VR), cyber sickness makes it difficult to apply VR to those who are already anxious and in distress. Skin conductance (SC) is widely used as a bio-signal reflecting anxiety. It is positively correlated with anxiety. The objective of this study was to determine the association between SC and anxiety in VR.MethodsHealthy volunteers with moderate-to-high stress defined as a Perceived Stress Scale-10 (PSS-10) score ≥20 were enrolled. STAI-X-1 was used to measure anxiety, and galvanic skin response was used to measure SC. This study used an open, randomized, crossover design. In this study, 360° videos consisted of two types, namely, less dizzying video (G1) and more dizzying video (G2). We randomized subjects into two groups according to video exposure order: G1 after watching G2 (Order 1) and G2 after watching G1 (Order 2). Of 81 subjects, the average age (±SD) was 39.98 ± 10.94 years for the Order 1 group and 36.54 ± 12.44 years for the Order 2 group.ResultsAnxiety was significantly decreased in the Order 2 group (p < 0.035) after watching videos, whereas there was no significant change in anxiety in the Order 1 group. In both groups, SC was significantly increased after exposure to a dizzying video. Mean difference (SD) between the second VR video and baseline SC was 1.61 (1.07) (p < 0.0001) in the Order 1 group and 0.92 (0.90) (p < 0.0001) in the Order 2 group, showing a significant difference between the two groups (p < 0.003). However, there was no significant difference between the two groups (p < 0.077) after baseline correction.ConclusionAnxiety was decreased significantly in the Order 2 group. The Order 1 group showed a high rate of change in skin conductivity. It is possible to reduce SC and anxiety by viewing a less dizzying VR video first and then viewing a more dizzying video later.

show abstract

How immersive virtual reality can become a key tool to advance research and psychotherapy of eating and weight disorders

Cited by 6 publications

References 61 publications

Designing immersive interfaces for clinical applications

Designing immersive interfaces for clinical applications

Virtual Reality Exposure to a Healthy Weight Body Is a Promising Adjunct Treatment for Anorexia Nervosa

Association between anxiety and skin conductance according to the intensity of shaking of virtual reality images

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About