Reprinted from: Zhejiang News | 2017-08-08

The “Virtual reality Drug Addiction Assessment and Correction System” jointly developed by the Provincial Drug Rehabilitation Administration and Hangzhou Seventh Technology Co., Ltd. recently completed the construction of a thousand-person correction database. Data show that the VR drug rehabilitation system is as effective as 98.1% for the treatment of some people. 1%.

The VR drug rehabilitation system relies on the real sense of immersion created by VR technology to assess and correct the “mental addiction” of drug rehabilitation personnel to drugs. The project leader, Dr. Wang Yongguang, a distinguished expert from the Provincial Drug Rehabilitation Administration, said that there are three main indicators to measure the effectiveness of this system, namely the accuracy rate of craving assessment, the efficiency of treatment, and the recovery rate. Through the comparison and analysis of thousands of sample data, it is proved that the accuracy rate of the system's prediction of the craving for methamphetamine (commonly known as “meth”) is 95.9%, the treatment efficiency is 73.6%, and the recovery rate is 37.6%. Among them, the effective rate of treatment for people with mild cravings is 65%, the effective rate of treatment for people with moderate cravings is 98.1%, and the effective rate of treatment for people with severe cravings is 67.3%. The different effective rates are mainly caused by the different tolerance of aversion therapy. According to the different cravings, the system has been differentiated in terms of algorithms.

At present, the Provincial Drug Rehabilitation Administration has set up VR drug rehabilitation function rooms in four compulsory isolation drug rehabilitation centers in the province, completed 1,008 effective sample tests, and successfully built a thousand-person virtual reality drug addiction assessment and correction database. Cao Xuejun, director of the Drug Rehabilitation Administration of the Ministry of Justice, said that in order to improve the scientific and professional level of drug rehabilitation work and improve the quality of drug rehabilitation, VR drug rehabilitation has been introduced into drug rehabilitation work.

He Dalun, technical director of Hangzhou Seventh Technology, said that the “virtual reality drug addiction assessment and correction system” is currently in actual operation in drug rehabilitation sites in Zhejiang, Hebei, Henan, Yunnan and many other drug rehabilitation sites have expressed their intention to introduce the system. At present, the company is still continuing to develop a targeted curriculum system for different drug users to formulate more personalized comprehensive treatment plans based on differences in addiction level, sensitivity to treatment content and other factors.