More than $1 million from the Royal Canadian Legion’s poppy fund will be going to the Heroes in Mind Advocacy and Research Consortium (HiMARC) at the University of Alberta.
The legion’s AB-NWT command calls it the “largest donation (it’s) ever made.”
The university is helping service members and veterans with supports to attend post-secondary school as well as with its therapeutic research into post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental health concerns.
“We want to find some other interventions that may be helpful for them rather than leaving them struggling,” said Suzette Bremault-Phillips, a professor at the U of A.
The treatment Bremault-Phillips is researching is called multi-modal motion-assisted memory desensitization and reconsolidation (3MDR).
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It uses virtual reality to help people with trauma.
People walk on a treadmill towards personal pictures on a screen that remind them of traumatic experiences.
Researchers say it’s been more effective than some more traditional therapies.
“(Post-traumatic stress disorder), one of the hallmarks is avoiding things they’d rather not look at,” Bremault-Phillips said.
“So we used personalized images and music for them to be able to approach the things they need to work through.
“Rather than living through that lens of an ongoing trauma, they can actually put that trauma behind and walk in and through it.”
Bremault-Phillips wants to continue the research and possibly bring it to other people.
For more on this story, watch the video at the top of this page.
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