Translating proven science into immersive and engaging XR therapeutics for mental and behavioral health: BehaVR

BehaVR began in 2016 in the country’s health innovation capital of Nashville, Tennessee. Since then, the company has expanded its multifaceted team of talented innovators across the nation. Together, BehaVR is committed to unlocking value, change, and better clinical outcomes for all stakeholders in the mental healthcare ecosystem. BehaVR cultivates community with the country’s leading researchers, advocates and clinical domain experts to co-develop solutions that make it possible for people to take agency over their own mental health —whatever anxiety-related challenges they may be suffering from.

BehaVR’s programs are designed to be simple, engaging, affordable, and practical.

Virtual Reality as a Therapeutic Intervention for Pain

Everyone knows physical therapy is an important component of recovery following surgery, but physical therapists are constantly searching for new, more effective ways to help their patients. The American Physical Therapy Association (APTA) has recently added one very promising treatment that physical therapists have been using for over 15 years: virtual reality. According to the APTA, virtual reality for chronic pain is a reliable intervention to help patients better manage their symptoms, improve physical function and reduce medication use. 

VR has been around for decades with many areas of application, but has been used in the treatment of chronic pain for a little over 15 years. In 1997, Dr. Hunter Hoffman and a team of clinical researchers originated the technique of using immersive virtual reality for pain distraction during painful medical procedures, at Harborview Burn Center in Seattle. That work led to the first controlled study in 2015 that explored whether VR can reduce excessive pain of soldiers who have combat-related burn injuries – that study found that virtual reality was “especially effective for the six patients who scored 7 of 10 or higher (severe to excruciating) on the ‘worst pain’ (pain intensity) ratings.”

Since clinicians and researchers have been able to show that virtual reality is incredibly effective for reducing chronic pain, physical therapists are now looking at other ways in which this technology can be used. Many are excited about being able to use VR to help improve physical function in patients by using immersive applications like virtual rock climbing or tennis training. This doesn’t mean pain specialists will be replacing exercises like squats and lunges with VR, but instead they can use VR to supplement physical therapy by allowing patients to regain physical function in a shorter amount of time. 

The future is promising for sufferers of chronic pain. With the development of innovative products like PNE+ and curriculum and training that teaches physical therapists how to effectively utilize virtual reality in treatment plans for patients with acute and chronic pain, it’s clear that VR is going to become an important tool for pain specialists everywhere.

VR Accelerates Positive Change

Virtual Reality is fundamentally changing people’s ability to take agency over their own mental health. It holds the psychological and neurological potential to dramatically transform lives. And, it can reduce the stigma associated with “seeking help.” Scroll to learn how or click below to explore what we’re working on. When it comes to overcoming mental health challenges, knowledge is power. As a medium, virtual reality is uniquely equipped to support and heal your brain and body as one connected system.

Stress is the reaction of your mind and body to difficult or threatening situations. Mindfulness is a proven solution for stress management. We guide you through mindfulness meditations in beautiful, immersive settings, to help you manage stress and feel calm by becoming present, slowing your breathing, and activating your parasympathetic nervous system.

Anxiety is how we feel when we think that something threatening or dangerous is likely to happen soon. Managing anxiety can come from forming new, more flexible relationships with our anxious thoughts, such as recognizing that not everything we tell ourselves is true, or useful, or needs to define us and how we live. We teach you these skills, based on effective cognitive-behavioral and acceptance-based therapies, but in a highly interactive manner that lets you engage with your thoughts using more of your senses. Fear is the reaction of our minds and bodies to immediate danger. It is the acute activation of our internal alarm system; the fight-or-flight response. But this response can be triggered when no actual danger is present. We help you learn to recognize the difference between true and false alarms and to build skills to break the automatic connections between your fearful thoughts, feelings, and actions.

Exposure to feared and avoided situations is a cornerstone of effective treatments for anxiety. VR is a proven medium for exposure therapy, providing the ability to place you gradually and safely in situations where you can learn that your worst fears do not come to pass.

Empowering VR

Virtual Reality is a computer-generated multi-sensory simulation that allows people to interact and be transported to new places within a three-dimensional environment. While VR is now accelerating into public consciousness, the technology can actually be dated back to 1957 when a man named Morton Heilig invented a multimedia device called the Sensorama. Since then, neuroscientists have taken a tremendous interest in exploring the medium’s utility for treating mental health challenges, because of how the immersive technology acts on the brain while it creating a safe space. Everyone can benefit, as the medium is incredibly accessible. While VR experiences can be expensive to develop, they are very cost-effective to distribute. We often ask ourselves: “What good is innovation in healthcare if most people can’t access it?” Our mission is to reimagine how people access and experience care by leveraging the unique neurological powers of VR and distributing it in engaging ways — until as many people as possible have an easy, engaging, and effective way into better mental health.

Virtual reality creates a multi-sensory simulation that our brain experiences as “real. The “bottom-up” neural pathways it activates create experiences (versus “top-down” thought processes, which are how the pre-frontal cortex responds) that can powerfully affect the brain’s threat processing centers, to either calm or arouse emotional and physiological responses, depending on the objective. Intentionally activating our brain’s threat centers by experiencing stressful or challenging stimuli is a mechanism of action involved in exposure therapy. The objective is to work through those threats and build resilience by reducing the emotional salience and intensity of the threat, then gain control over it as the brain rewires itself through neuroplasticity.  The multi-sensory simulation of reality that VR can create is a powerful, scalable, and infinitely flexible way to scale exposure and extinction therapy to address a range of anxiety-related disorders. Virtual therapeutics and wellness programs can be extremely effective in helping extinguish stress, anxiety, and fear. This is why we have built all our programs on the SAFE protocol. Wherever you are in your journey, there is a growing body of evidence to support the idea that Virtual Reality is the most effective and transformative therapeutic medium for mental health — from its ability to strengthen brainwaves to its potential for healing trauma and opioid addiction. 

Meet the leader behind the success of BehaVR

Aaron Gani, Founder & CEO has been creating applications and experiences with technology throughout his career in healthcare and financial services, up to and including serving as Chief Technology Officer of Humana, a Fortune 50 managed care organization.

After more than a decade in healthcare leading technology development and innovation in population health, disease management programs, pharmacy, primary care, urgent care, Health IT, and clinical analytics, and constantly working on ways to improve and empower consumer health with technology, data and analytics, Gani resolved to create scalable solutions to the massive unmet needs in mental and behavioral health and believes Virtual Reality therapeutic experiences can close that gap.

Gani is a founding member of the Strategic Advisory Board of the Digital Medicine (DiMe) Society, and a founding advisory board member of the International Virtual Reality Healthcare Association (IVRHA). Gani holds a Master’s in Predictive Analytics from Northwestern University, an MBA, General Management and Health Sector Management from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, and a BS in Management/CIS from the University of Louisville. 

“At our core, we’re about helping people work through feelings of stress, anxiety, and fear, towards a safer and improved state of well-being.”