ViTraS - Virtual Reality Therapy by Stimulation of Modulated Body Image - Project Outline

Abstract

In the recent decades, obesity has become one of the major public health issues and is associated with severe other diseases. Although current multidisciplinary therapy approaches already include behavioral therapy techniques, the oftentimes remaining lack of psychotherapeutic support after surgery leads to relapses and renewed weight gain. This paper presents an overview of the project ViTraS - Virtual Reality Therapy by Stimulation of Modulated Body Image - that addresses these challenges by: (i) Developing an integrative model predicting the influential paths of immersive media for an effective behavioral change; (ii) Developing an augmented reality (AR)-mirror system enabling an effective therapy on body self-perception of patients, and (iii) Developing a multi-user virtual reality (VR)-system supplying social support from therapists and other patients. The three components of the ViTraS projects are briefly introduced, as well as a first prototype of the AR-mirror system.