More than 170 VA medical centers are using virtual reality headsets to help veterans with mental health, pain management and physical rehabilitation.
The Department of Veterans Affairs is advancing health care for veterans through virtual reality. VA has over 3,500 virtual reality headsets across more than 170 VA medical centers that have helped veterans benefit from pain management, depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress, physical rehabilitation, sleep, and more.
“When you are in virtual reality, you are completely psychologically present in that environment,” said Dr. Anne Lord Bailey, VA Immersive Lead and Executive Director of Strategic Initiatives Lab, during a veteran service organization call. “It helps you believe you are somewhere other than you actually are which is where we’ve seen benefit, particular benefit in the clinical realm.
“What veterans are often asking for is what we call in vivo exposure and the ability to practice everyday environments that might, for any number of reasons, be triggering or anxiety inducing. With a (VR) headset, we can create some of those environments as sort of a bridge to that more intensive care.”
Bailey said that there have been eight events at VA medical centers where 535 veterans tested a VR headset. Results showed that of those veterans, 66% had never used VR before, 91% said it was very easy to use, and 91% said they would like more virtual reality incorporated for at-home use and/or in person health care.
A VA provider noticed that the mental and physical health of a patient with secondary progressive multiple sclerosis was improving. Turns out, the patient’s grandson had a VR headset, and he was fishing. She asked him to teach her.
“As she began to do even these virtual reality activities like fishing, her grip strength was starting to improve because she was using hand controllers regularly,” Bailey said. “And she also discovered that she could meet with other veterans in virtual worlds. That helped her emotional and mental health. Stories like these have really helped drive how we think about utilization of this technology.”
And it’s not just VA patients benefiting from VR. Staff are too.
“Even staff are using them for stress relief,” Bailey said. “Stress relief for our employees improves the experience for the veterans as well. So we continue to see a ripple effect of how this technology is working.”
Bailey shared an example of how VA has used VR headsets for suicide prevention.
“We know from Office of Suicide Prevention that one of the number one ways to prevent suicide is lethal means safety. We also know that in a moment of crisis our staff, or even caregivers, may not know exactly how to walk a veteran through safely disarming, locking and storing weapons.”
The VA has brought that training to life for staff and others through the VR headset “so that you can actually safely handle a weapon, learn how to inspect it, learn how to disarm it, lock it and store it. I mentioned a psychological presence (with virtual reality). You see that when people do this experience because we tell them you've completed the experience, you can put the hand controllers down, and they safely place them on a table as though they were setting down a firearm. Because you forget, what you see in your hands in that virtual environment is an actual weapon.”
Find virtual reality success stories, resources and more information on VA Immersive care at innovation.va.gov.
“I can tell you, there is no other healthcare system in the world that is utilizing this technology as much as VA,” Bailey said. “And we know that because people from all over the world come to us and ask us how to do this more.”
- Veterans Healthcare