2B3D Aims To Reduce Veteran Suicide In The Metaverse, With Virtual Reality Mental Health Therapies – Forbes

By Christos Makridis

Metaverse platform 2B3D announced the first-of-its-kind “virtual reality medical environment,” which delivers live, free mental health services to military veterans via the metaverse. Owned and operated by military veterans, 2B3D is deploying new treatment via technology that has the potential to vastly improve the physical and mental health of veterans over the internet.

Facts about veteran suicide and mental health

There is a bipartisan recognition that urgent responses are needed to reduce veteran suicide in America. “Veteran suicide is still too high, but we are making progress, there is still work to do so that one day we are speaking of veteran suicide in the past tense,” said U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy on September 20. After the Taliban takeover last summer, Cassidy led a bipartisan group of senators advocating outreach to veterans who served in Afghanistan to provide mental health resources in response to an uptick in veteran suicide hotline calls.

Suicide is a leading cause of death in the United States, which has only intensified over the past two years following a surge of mental health declines during the lock downs across states. But the incidence of suicide falls more heavily on some groups over others, especially veterans. “Veterans bear a disproportionate but preventable burden… veteran suicide-related deaths are also increasing at a greater rate than that of the general U.S. population: from 2001 to 2019, the rate of suicide among veterans increased nearly 36% relative to an increase of 30% in the general population,” said Christopher Jones, acting director of Public Health Service at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in a congressional testimony in June.

However, there has been a decline in deaths due to suicides in 2020, according to the Veteran Suicide Prevention Annual Report published by the Department of Veterans Affairs, providing some optimistic evidence. Furthermore, the report shows that, from 2018 to 2020, age- and sex-adjusted suicide rates for Veterans fell by 9.7% and, among non-Veteran U.S. adults, age- and sex-adjusted suicide rates also peaked in 2018 and fell in 2019 and 2020.

Immersive therapy ‘rewires’ the brain from trauma.

(Courtesy of 2B3D)

Suicide has many causes and these may include any combination of mental health and substance abuse issues, economic and housing insecurity, loneliness and high stress. Post-traumatic stress disorder also increases the risk of a suicide attempt. A Veterans Affairs study on 60,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans found 13.5% of deployed and undeployed vets screened positive for post-traumatic stress disorder.

Much needed remedies

One of the Department of Veteran Affair’s main responses to curb veteran suicide attempts is through a crisis line, namely a suicide prevention hotline. A person does not need to be enrolled in benefits to call these lines, so family members are often encouraged to call on behalf of a loved one who may be having suicidal thoughts or behaviors. However, the efficacy of a phone call to help someone in a life or death situation depends on the competency and availability of the person on the line.

Veterans in crisis can connect with the Veterans Crisis Line to reach a caring, qualified responders 24/7 to help Veterans, active-duty service members and their families and friends through a crisis Veterans and Service members, including members of the National Guard and Reserves, along with their loved ones, can Dial 988 and Press 1, chat online at MilitaryCrisisLine.net, or send a text to 838255 to receive free, confidential support. Despite higher call demand after the launch of 988 in July 2022, VCL response times were quicker and exceeded performance standards.

Although the House of Representatives unanimously approved a bill in 2016 requiring the Veteran’s Affairs to ensure that all telephone calls, text messages and other communications received by the crisis line are answered in a timely manner by an appropriately qualified person, finding enough of those qualified individuals remains a challenge. For example, there has been a lot of staff turnover, especially over the past two years, and the quality of care has changed in facilities.

While lack of skilled staff is a major roadblock in ensuring that veterans receive help, another challenge is the delivery mechanism: care must be accessible when the veteran needs it, which might happen at any time of the day, and the therapies must be enjoyable. Support should be integrated into veterans’ daily lives.

A veteran enjoying mental health services via the 2B3D metaverse.

(Courtesy of 2B3D)

To assist Veterans who have simple queries not related to therapy needs or crisis, the National Artificial Intelligence Institute at the Department of Veterans Affairs is pioneering the use of chatbots through their partnerships with industry in technology sprints.

“These are problems that require humans interfacing with humans… the sooner we leverage technology to create virtual reality environments that emulate the human-to-human aspect of treatment, then we can augment that with proven treatments that can maximize artificial intelligence or machine learning. Right now the cart is in front of the horse,” said retired Col. Mark Schonberg, chief of staff at 2B3D.

2B3D’s upcoming beta launch

The prototype beta version for 2B3D’s metaverse environment for veterans simulates a typical analog medical clinic or center. The individual’s avatar walks into the facility and is then evaluated by one of the counselors. Depending on that evaluation, a subject could be referred to group counseling, scheduled a follow-up appointment in the real world, execute individual therapy sessions, or in extreme cases referred to 911 services. However, the crisis support aspect is simply one option within the virtual reality medical environment. The environment can become a place where disadvantaged veterans can spend time together and interact with others experiencing similar challenges.

2B3D’s solution also addresses substance use and addiction. Treatment protocols are initiated for addiction prior to, or simultaneously with, virtual reality treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder for best results. During the beta testing of the virtual reality medical environment, 2B3D partnered with BioCorRx, which is addressing the challenges of addiction treatment using a holistic approach of cognitive behavior therapy and prescribed medication. Select resources from BioCorRx’s library of digital cognitive behavior therapy modules will be discoverable to visitors to the Phase I environment and can be engaged with at any time.

The space station beta platform in the veteran’s virtual reality, coming in Q1 2023.

(Courtesy of 2B3D)

Over half of today’s veterans flock to gaming to alleviate service-induced stress since they provide an engaging, suspense-filled, and interactive experience. The non-clinical and autonomous setting also encourages veterans to open up and share in ways they may be unwilling to do within the confines of a hospital facility.

“We are working to take already proven post-traumatic stress disorder symptom-reducing programs and not only duplicate them in virtual reality, but also gamify them to make healing fun… the first test patient in our current trials showed results of improved rebalancing of the brain by 34% of the brain overall and over 60% in damaged low functioning centers,” said Robert Bell, president of 2B3D.

By borrowing from the immersive environments and collaborative team aspects of games that are popular with veterans, a virtual reality medical environment can deliver support in a way that veterans already enjoy and are comfortable with at any hour of the day, with only a headset and the internet.

Technological improvements, such as expanded 5G coverage and satellite-based solutions like Starlink, and the expansion of artificial intelligence provide additional momentum for virtual reality.

“Today, we have much more data available to us that we can use to understand and identify suicidal ideation, crisis, and risk for self-harm—at the VA [Department of Veterans Affairs], for example, we have genomic information from the Million Vet Program and transcript data from crisis lines like the VA Veterans Crisis Line… new technology like artificial intelligence will never replace the expertise, intuition, and judgment of care teams, but it offers the promise of perspective—an additional safety net that can sift through big data and help us to learn and flag those who could be in need and connect them quickly to the care they need.” said Gil Alterovitz, director of the National AI Institute at the Department of Veterans Affairs.

The adoption of metaverse experiences will also come with a wide array of blockchain based complementary assets. 2B3D is already planning to deploy non-fungible tokens to ensure identity management seamlessly across platforms in virtual reality medical environment so that users can avoid the hassle and risk of sharing personal and identifiable information whenever they consent to releasing it for therapies. Whether it is group therapy or listening to live music, the metaverse will unlock new possibilities for human flourishing among veterans and individuals at large.

Ahead of its platform launch, 2B3D will have an non-fungible token sale in early Q4, details forthcoming via its website and social channels. The proceeds will be used to fund further development of its metaverse environments; extra funds will support the Forge Forward Project.