Researchers Develop Virtual Reality Training to Help First Responders Manage Stress

AURORA, Colo. (KDVR) -- Imagine you are in an elevator. There is typical, boring elevator music playing as it climbs up to the top floor of a skyscraper. When the door opens, you are outside, 400 feet up and the only place to go is a thin wooden plank hanging over the edge. What do you do? “Only about half of the people who do this actually get out of the elevator,” said Matt Vogle, executive director at the National Mental Health Innovation Center at  the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. The exercise is part of a virtual reality simulation designed to induce stress. “For most people, fight or flight kicks in and even though people know they’re on the floor, their brain says no way, you’re not safe so I’m not going to let you go out there,” he said. NMHIC is developing a virtual reality training program for first responders to prevent the stresses of the job. “Police, fire, dispatch and EMS, they have probably among the highest stress of any occupation out there,” Vogle said. “They haven’t done a great job of mental health training and how do you prepare people for the psychological stress that they’re going to experience?” Read more...
Source: JEMS Operations - Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: Tags: News Videos Operations Source Type: news