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A behavioral health specialist aims his weapon during a demonstration provided by Maj. (Dr.) Michael Valdovinos to show how Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy can be used to treat Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
For those who think they are suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, a new form of help is available at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center where they can recreate the look, sounds and smells of a deployed environment to help patients revisit and cope with events that have affected them so profoundly.
Approximately 30 patients have been treated with positive results through the Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy program since it was donated to LRMC last October by the Wounded Warrior Project. Results have been good, said Maj. (Dr.) Michael Valdovinos, chief of outpatient behavioral health.
“It’s an extremely effective treatment because it is a patient’s personalized reality that they learn to process, control and regulate,” Valdovinos said. “Visual memory is powerful, and if I can use that to help patients create their own movie scene, then they can move into it to rewrite their own script.”
The outpatient behavioral health team uses VRET to help patients with a specific part of their trauma they might not have successfully resolved through other forms of treatment. For example, Valdovinos said he had a patient who felt like he emotionally just couldn’t get past losing his best friend during a firefight in a building where they were ambushed.
Valdovinos said they were able to recreate the scenario of the building, and when the service member “walked” into the building for the first time since the incident, he was very anxious at first, but was able to remain in the virtual doorway of the building for about 15 minutes.
The service member experienced the scenario over and over again until he was able to enter the building and move around with mortars going off and insurgents attacking in the streets below. Valdovinos said this repetition of virtually recreating the anxiety- proving event helps decrease the anxiety symptoms and fear surrounding it. At the same time, it’s helping service members learn to process the negative thoughts surrounding the trauma.
LRMC has the Army’s largest outpatient behavioral health clinic in Europe and is the only Army installation in Europe to offer VRET. The Landstuhl Outpatient Behavioral Health Clinic also offers the capability using this innovative therapy to teach mindfulness and other relaxation techniques. Dr. Kendra Jorgensen-Wagers is a clinician who, in addition to using VRET to treat PTSD, offers VRET to treat chronic pain.
For more about VRET or for an evaluation, call 590-5847 or 06371-9464-5847.
