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Comparing Virtual Reality Therapy to Usual Treatment for PTSD

NCT00167804 · Status: COMPLETED · Phase: NA · Type: INTERVENTIONAL · Enrollment: 20

Last updated 2011-12-06

No results posted yet for this study

Summary

Combat related Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is the most common chronic psychiatric disorder in the veteran population. Unfortunately, outcome studies of VA PTSD programs have failed to show efficacy. VA PTSD patients have been significantly less responsive to conventional therapies than other PTSD populations. Virtual Reality based exposure therapy (VRE) allows patients to feel immersed in highly interactive computer-generated environments. Within these environments patients can be exposed to anxiety-provoking stimuli in a gradual and controlled manner so that they can become desensitized to these stimuli and, in the case of PTSD, the traumatic memories evoked by these stimuli. The advantages of VRE include less reliance on the patient's ability to visualize traumatic memories and making it more difficult for patients to avoid memories during exposure therapy. It is also safer and more convenient than in vivo exposure. In this study twenty Vietnam veterans are randomly assign to either VRE or to a Treatment as Usual (TAU) control condition. Treatment would consist of ten ninety-minute individual psychotherapy sessions for both groups. Assessments would occur at pre-treatment, immediate post-treatment and at six months post-treatment.

Conditions

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Virtual Reality Exposure

VRE uses computer generated environments to conduct exposure therapy.

Sponsors & Collaborators

Principal Investigators

  • David Ready, PhD MS · VA Medical Center, Decatur

Study Design

Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
TREATMENT
Masking
NONE
Model
PARALLEL

Eligibility

Sex
ALL
Healthy Volunteers
No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start
2004-09-30
Primary Completion
2006-08-31
Completion
2006-08-31

Countries

  • United States

Study Locations

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Diseases
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Read the full study record

This page highlights key information. For complete eligibility criteria, study locations, investigator contacts, and the full protocol, visit the original record on ClinicalTrials.gov.

View NCT00167804 on ClinicalTrials.gov