Iraq War Veteran Treated by Virtual Reality Therapy

June 7, 2007— -- Sgt. Bryan Neal spent a harrowing and bloody year in Iraq with the Georgia National Guard. He survived dozens of IED attacks. On many occasions, he saw his friends suffer and die.

When he came home, he treated his post-traumatic stress disorder in a way some might find supremely counterintuitive -- by repeatedly reliving his worst memories in virtual reality.

For weeks, Neal went into a small room at Emory University in Atlanta, put on a virtual reality helmet and was digitally transported back to the dusty, dangerous streets of Iraq.

When we asked Neal about his initial reaction to this experimental approach, he said, "I thought there's no way I want to do this."

But he said he felt he had no choice. His time in Iraq was haunting him.

"It was a constant state of stress and worry," Neal said of his tour of duty. "If you don't do something right, somebody will get seriously hurt or die."

In his first few months at home, Neal seemed to be adjusting well. He married his college sweetheart and went back to work as a salesman in suburban Atlanta.

But soon he started having nightmares and flashbacks. When driving, Neal couldn't stop thinking about roadside bombs.

"I see a bag on the side of the road, and I swerve. And I've almost gotten into accidents where I've swerved into oncoming traffic and almost run somebody off the road."

At work and at home, he couldn't get back into the old routine. "I felt like I couldn't concentrate at work, and I felt like I was really short with people around me and was really bringing that experience here, home. And I knew that I needed to get help from someone."

Neal sought help at Emory University, where he was diagnosed with PTSD. Despite his initial reservations, Neal was convinced by Emory psychologist Maryrose Girardi to give virtual reality therapy a try.

Girardi is one of the researchers on a federally funded study of virtual reality and PTSD. The software, designed by Albert "Skip" Rizzo, uses virtual reality to digitally re-create soldiers' memories.