Month: December 2017

Emerging Technologies Helping to Mobilize Healthcare Services

Collaborating with an international group of researchers, Dr. Brenda Wiederhold, Ian Miller, and Dr. Mark Wiederhold recently published a chapter in Digital Health: Scaling Healthcare to the World. Edited by Homero Rivas and  Katarzyna Wac of Stanford University, this book presents a comprehensive overview of state-of-the-art approach to digital health technologies and healthcare practices. Wiederhold, Miller, and Wiederhold contributed a chapter titled, “Augmenting Behavioral Healthcare:Mobilizing Services with Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality.” This chapter focuses on the use of virtual and augmented reality in behavioral healthcare. More specifically, it describes how these portable technologies can be used to increase access and efficiency of behavioral health interventions.

 

You may purchase the full text at: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-61446-5_9

For questions regarding the chapter, please contact Dr. Brenda K. Wiederhold (frontoffice@vrphobia.com).

Wiederhold BK, Miller I, Wiederhold MD. Augmenting Behavioral Healthcare: Mobilizing Services with Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality. InDigital Health 2018 (pp. 123-137). Springer, Cham.

Encompassing Mental Health

San Diego, CA: On September 29th, 2017, Interactive Media Institute (IMI) traveled to Riverside, California to present at the annual Encompassing Mental Health (EMH) conference. Organized by Reach Out and the Inland Health Professions Coalition—a youth development organization—this event educated high school juniors and seniors in the Moreno Valley area on behavioral health practice, pathway, and occupations. IMI’s representative, Ian Miller, spoke to the conference attendees about the use of virtual reality in behavioral health interventions and the importance of increasing access to mental health services in their community. Additionally, the attendees participated in a group discussion about destigmatizing mental illness. When asked about what they had learned, one student planning to study psychology in college said “I’d never heard of virtual reality therapy until today, but it’s an interesting new field in psychology!” While receiving a demonstration on the use of virtual reality relaxation in the treatment of anxiety disorders, another attendee said “It’s so cool that I can just put on this headset and sit on a beach to relax.”