Influence of virtual reality and augmented reality on mental health

Abstract

Introduction: When the term artificial intelligence comes to mind, most people intuitively relate it to science fiction, especially those who are older and who had access to books, comics and impactful films on these topics, especially the film based on the story by Brian Aldiss and directed by Spielberg.

Methods: A review of the literature was carried out in the month of January 2024 through access to the databases Scopus, PubMed, Dialnet, Scielo, and the search engine Google Scholar version 2022, with the strategies: ((health mental) AND (augmented reality)), ((mental health) AND (technological advances)) and ((medicine) AND (mental health) AND (augmented reality) AND (virtual reality) AND (technology)) and their translations into English language, limited the search to the last 5 years.

Results: Virtual reality has its origins in the Second World War, as a precedent for a request from the United States of America to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for it to create a flight simulator that would allow ground training for the navy; which gave birth to virtual reality. In 1960, the first multi-sensor simulator created by Morton Heilin was called Sensorama.

Conclusions: Virtual reality has positively influenced the restoration of mental health; Therefore, this development of technology has been a fundamental factor in many moments of scientific and technical development in the health sciences.