Medical Blog, Avatar Therapy or Computer Voice
Assisted Therapy.
Avatar Therapy, or computer voice assisted therapy is
targeted at schizophrenics with auditory hallucinations, with whom psychiatric
medicines have had no effect.
It is reported that with avatar therapy we can cure 15% of
the cases successfully[].
We have at Vayu Vaidya developed a version of avatar therapy
which is better than the software developed at __http://www.avatartherapy.co.uk/__________[1], in that a
patient can design an avatar from a library of photographs using
morphogenesis.com, change the features of this avatar, choose or synthesize a
voice, change it’s pitch and communicate
with a psychiatrist remotely, who handles the conversation with the avatar.
The script for the conversation of a patient with an avatar
is pre compiled and psychiatrists are trained in this therapy. This therapy is
particularly useful for patients with threatening and bullying voices, the
psychiatrist uses this therapy to reason out or persuade the voices to back out
or change their stance. A high degree of success in annulling these voices has
been reported[], and in most cases, where the patients do not turn aggressive,
the voices are said to disappear and not return.
We intend testing our version of the software, developed
using BotLibre Avatars at HIHT, hospital Dehradun, India. We will be conducting
a clinical study to confirm, other published findings on Avatar Therapy and will be training and
licensing psychiatrists in Canada, USA and the Indian Himalayas to use it
through ECHO hubs and Tele-Clinics.
1.http://www.avatartherapy.co.uk/
