VRx

October 1, 2020
Virtuality reality may conjure up images of teenage boys wearing goggles and playing first-person shooter games, but Spiegel, a professor of medicine and public health at UCLA and the director of health-services research at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, sees three-dimensional simulated experiences as a way to treat patients without drugs and their harmful side effects. The idea sounds like science fiction, but the author uses many examples to show why he believes "digiceuticals" can improve lives for people with conditions such as Alzheimer's, chronic pain, eating disorders, and anxiety. Spiegel acknowledges potential risks. Some people can become dizzy and nauseous while flying over virtual landscapes, and others can become disoriented and fall. Children, in particular, can be easily frightened while in VR and can also develop false memories. Still, Spiegel remains bullish on the possibilities, sounding a bit like a Timothy Leary for virtual therapeutics, describing VR as a hallucination machine with potential to free an overburdened mind. He concludes: When used in the right way, in the right people, and at the right time, VR brings wonder and beauty to mankind. (Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)