Benefits of Therapy With Virtual Reality Exposure in the Treatment of Cocaine Use Disorders

Overview

Cocaine addiction is a multifactorial disease with important consequences: somatic, psychiatric... The number of applications for treatment for cocaine addiction is gradually increasing from year to year but no conventional treatment is available. New tools such as virtual reality could be used in this treatment. We propose to create a virtual reality program based on the analysis of high-risk relapse situations described by patients. We will then assess the effect of this cybertherapy on patients' relapse time and their desire to use cocaine

In France, according to the Health Barometer 2017, cocaine testing has seen two decades of increases from 1.2% in 1995 to 5.6% in 2017, making it the second most widely used illicit substance. About 5% of cocaine users may become addicted in the first year of use, while 20% will develop long-term addiction. This dependence or substance use disorder is characterized in particular by a loss of control of cocaine use and continued use despite the negative consequences. Another of the central dimensions of this disorder is the craving (irresistible or irrepressible need or desire to consume) which is caused by internal or external stimuli. Craving is the cause of frequent loss of controls and re-consumption. The treatment of cocaine addictions is generally based on a dual model of pharmacological treatment often aimed at limiting craving and psychotherapeutic treatment in order to alter the emotions and memory associated with cocaine use; for example: relearning product management when it comes to the subject. In this context, the use of a 3D tool, which allows a gradual and well-detested exposure without confrontation, seems an interesting prospect. Virtual reality therapies have historically been known for treating phobias (fears). In addictions, exposure therapies are done in imagination and rarely with consumer-inducing situations. Since 2000, several researchers have successfully used virtual reality applications in addictions, but there is little data on objective assessments of the effectiveness of cybertherapy in the treatment of cocaine addictions. All of these elements converge to propose a protocol called "CORVI" to evaluate the effectiveness of virtual reality exposure therapy as the management of patients with cocaine use disorder versus management classic. The project is based on 3 phases: 1/construction of films that can be used in cybertherapy that reproduce situations in which there are stimuli generating "craving" to cocaine. 2/ Treatment of 2 randomized patient groups with and without cybertherapy (n-20/group) 3/Relapse evaluations at 1.2 and 3 months post-treatment