Virtual rehabilitation

Virtual rehabilitation refers to the use of virtual reality for the treatment of psychological, neurological, physiological or cognitive disorders. Therapy is fully supported in part, or by the use of the technology.

The term Virtual Rehabilitation ( engl. virtual rehabilitation, sometimes cyber therapy ) was established in 2002 on the first workshop on " Virtual Reality Rehabilitation ( Mental Health, Neurological, Physical, Vocational ) VRMHR 2002" in Lausanne, Switzerland coined. Since then, relevant research from the participating disciplines ( computer science, medicine, therapy, psychology, robotics, neuroscience ) is summarized under this heading. In 2008, the International Society for Virtual Rehabilitation was founded.

Virtual rehabilitation allows a number of added value compared to conventional therapy:

• Increased motivation of the patient to cooperate
• Automatic recording and evaluation of therapy data
• Also able to offer the home therapy or teletherapy, wherein a part of the therapy for a spatial and / or temporal separation of the patient and therapist occurs.
• Potential of the development of novel therapies that would not be possible without the use of technology.

The physiotherapy and occupational therapeutic benefits of the technology is not yet documented mainly in the form of case studies. For use in psychotherapy a better level of evidence can be attested. The treatment of patients with post-traumatic stress disorder is carried out in the U.S. today with the help of virtual reality.