A Controlled Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy Application for Smartphones

Joana Teixeira, Bruno Patrão, Paulo Menezes

2022

Abstract

Exposure therapy (ET) is often used as a therapeutic process for the treatment of a psychological disorder. Usually, this type of therapy is challenging to apply traditionally as the therapist must expose the patient safely to the cause of the disorder. To help surpass this problem, a virtual reality (VR) application was developed to support exposure therapy. As these therapies are based on a gradual and repetitive process, with this application, the patient can be exposed to the phobic element at different levels of anxiety intensity as prescribed by the therapist. This application was designed to be used either during the therapeutic sessions or at home. While using it in therapeutic sessions, it allows the therapist to include the analysis of physiological signals, escape movements, or other reactions during the exposure. At home, as homework for the therapy sessions, it will allow the patient to keep training what was learned during therapy. It is being developed as a serious game for smartphones, and users will only need a cardboard-like VR headset.

Paper Citation

in Harvard Style

Teixeira J., Patrão B. and Menezes P. (2022). A Controlled Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy Application for Smartphones. In Proceedings of the 17th International Joint Conference on Computer Vision, Imaging and Computer Graphics Theory and Applications (VISIGRAPP 2022) - Volume 1: GRAPP; ISBN 978-989-758-555-5, SciTePress, pages 294-301. DOI: 10.5220/0010990300003124

in Bibtex Style

@conference{grapp22,
author={Joana Teixeira and Bruno Patrão and Paulo Menezes},
title={A Controlled Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy Application for Smartphones},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 17th International Joint Conference on Computer Vision, Imaging and Computer Graphics Theory and Applications (VISIGRAPP 2022) - Volume 1: GRAPP},
year={2022},
pages={294-301},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0010990300003124},
isbn={978-989-758-555-5},
}

in EndNote Style

TY - CONF

JO - Proceedings of the 17th International Joint Conference on Computer Vision, Imaging and Computer Graphics Theory and Applications (VISIGRAPP 2022) - Volume 1: GRAPP
TI - A Controlled Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy Application for Smartphones
SN - 978-989-758-555-5
AU - Teixeira J.
AU - Patrão B.
AU - Menezes P.
PY - 2022
SP - 294
EP - 301
DO - 10.5220/0010990300003124
PB - SciTePress