Quitting smoking is no easy task. To improve the long-term effectiveness of smoking cessation, the team of Professor Lançon, head of the Psychiatry and Addictology department at the Conception Hospital in Marseille, is testing a new technique: virtual reality. Using 3D glasses and a helmet, the patient is faced with “risky” situations that could make her want to smoke: a coffee break, a drink on the terrace, or even an evening with friends. .
Effective for one in two patients
Smokers benefit from a weekly 45-minute session for approximately two months. After a year and a half of work, Professor Lançon’s team finds that the therapy has been effective for half of the patients. An improvement over national figures which state that only one in three smokers manage to do not relapse after weaning.
Learn to deal with negative ideas
These virtual scenes put the person in front of a negative feeling (here a feeling of lack) to learn how to manage it effectively, the goal being to then apply this mastery of the situation in real conditions. This technique comes under Cognitive and Behavioral Therapies (CBT). Used to treat psychological disorders, they have for example already proved their worth in the treatment of phobias, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), generalized anxiety disorders or even bipolar disorders. The use of TBIs launches new hope in the fight against smoking, which is responsible for 66,000 deaths each year in France, according to the National Institute for Prevention and Education for Health (Inpes).
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