Sally Satel Promoted Virtual Reality War Games

Dr. Sally Satel Promoted Virtual Reality War Games as a Treatment for PTSD
May 18, 2010 posted by Robert L. Hanafin
Recently we at Veterans Today have been getting a lot of feedback both positive and negative on the Pentagon’s experimentation with Virtual Reality War Games as a treatment for PTSD.

First let me say that I personally want to approach this with an open mind, heck I’m a strong, passionate supporter of Assistance, Service, and Companion Dogs for Vets and Troops as a treatment for PTSD but not as a exclusive approach. That said, not even the Pentagon is advocating the use of virtual reality combat simulations (war games) as the answer for PTSD, combat stress, or combat trauma but as a weapon in their arsenal for dealing with and helping troops cope with PTSD. After all the MISSION of military medicine is Force Readiness.

What I do caution are (1) Sally Satel has advocated this approach from the early stages of its development and that alone turns my radar of suspicion on, and (2) virtual reality is based on a commercial war game that is sold in Wal-Mart, K-Mart, even on Base and Post Exchanges, so why spend millions of tax payer bucks on a defense contract when military psychologist can just pay a few bucks to pick up a similar war game at the Bx or Px and tailor it to the patient’s PTSD symptoms?

Anyway, we at Veterans Today have decided to do a series of articles focusing on this latest development in state of the art technology to treat PTSD. I am going to do best I can to paint a balanced picture of the pros and cons leaving out my own personal bias and cautions, because as I said we should approach this open minded, fiscally prudent (is is cost effective per patient treated), exactly how does it differ from the War Games psychologist can buy or prescribe for their patients at the BX/PX, but most important how many active duty troops can they get to step forward and admit they have a problem using this attention getter?

Lastly, what are the implications, if any, for expansion of this treatment into the Department of Veterans Affairs? If PTSD is caught, treated, and troops even taught to cope with PTSD and stay on active duty, then eventually PTSD could become a thing of the past within the VA system. Are we talking cure here? Maybe, maybe not.

Robert L. Hanafin, Major, U.S. Air Force-Retired, Veterans Today News Network
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Dr Sally Satel Promoted Virtual Reality War Games