A Virtual Reality System for the Cognitive and Behavioral Assessment of Schizophrenia

Abstract

Patients with schizophrenia have thinking disorders such as delusion or hallucination, because they have a deficit in the ability which to systematize and integrate information. therefore, they cannot integrate or systematize visual, auditory and tactile stimuli. In this study, we suggest a virtual reality system for the assessment of cognitive ability of schizophrenia patients, based on the brain multimodal integration model. The virtual reality system provides multimodal stimuli, such as visual and auditory stimuli, to the patient, and can evaluate the patient's multimodal integration and working memory integration abilities by making the patient interpret and react to multimodal stimuli, which must be remembered for a given period of time. the clinical study showed that the virtual reality program developed is comparable to those of the WCST and the SPM.