October 11, 2016.
A virtual simulator was designed by psychiatrists to understand what’s going on in the minds of people with schizophrenia.
Victims of delusions, visual or auditory hallucinations
More than 600,000 French people suffer from schizophrenia, an illness that causes ” withdrawal from reality and autistic thinking According to the World Health Organization. People with schizophrenia can indeed be victims of delusions, visual or auditory hallucinations, disturbances of their thinking and their affectivity.
To better understand this disease, Dr David Travers, psychiatrist at Rennes University Hospital, developed a device that allows to better understand the feelings of these patients thanks to virtual reality. It is a headset that allows the user to put themselves in three situations of everyday life: in front of the television, in a bus or in the video library.
A very good description of what the patients are going through
When the user gets on the bus, for example, he sees all eyes on him and a voice points out: ” Why is everyone looking at you like this? »A feeling of visual and auditory percussion, the impression of being attacked from all sides. ” This scene describes very well what these people are going through. », Explains Marie-Jeanne Richard, member of Unafam, the Union of families and friends of sick and / or mentally handicapped people, to HuffPost.
” I find what my two sick children tell each other, these anxieties generated by public places », She describes. ” I also remember a young girl who in the middle of lunch asked everyone if they were talking about her, when the conversation was about something else entirely. Their daily life is hard and this dive through virtual reality makes it very good. “
This device is not marketed. Intended for healthcare professionals, it could allow them to better understand their patients.
To read also: Hallucinations: how to get rid of them?
