Battling the Fear of Public Speaking: Designing Software as a Service Solution for a Virtual Reality Therapy

Abstract

Recent advances of the virtual reality technology and the spread of high quality consumer-grade devices made a virtual reality exposure treatment as an accessible option for psychological clinics. Effectiveness of this kind of therapy has been investigated for more than 25 years although the massive hardware improvements requires new studies to be made in order to measure the impact created by latest virtual reality headsets capabilities. In this paper we report our efforts to design and develop a cloud based software as a service solution which will be used in randomized controlled trials of the virtual reality exposure therapy for public speaking anxiety disorder. We describe a design and development process which involves creation of the virtual environments and a service which enables the therapist to regulate and adapt the therapy session intensity for each the patient in the real-time.