Depression Detection Using Virtual Reality: A Literature Review

Abstract

Depression is a mood disorder that can cause mental suffering, functional impairment, physical abuse or automutilation. Early detection will help depressed people to seek professional advice and treatment earlier and recover sooner. Emerging technologies such as virtual reality (VR) have been used to assist in interventions because of their advantages in providing more flexible solutions to implement therapeutic methods. However, the applications of using VR as a diagnostic tool for mental disorders have not been thoroughly investigated. In this study, prior studies that used VR for detecting depression were reviewed and summarized. Also reviewed were other emerging technologies for depression detection. By summarizing the effort on this topic and proposing an integrated framework, we hope that the presented work will reduce the barriers to implement emerging technologies in supporting traditional depression diagnostic methods, with a further expectation to provide inspiration and guidance for future studies.