Nice to See You Again Virtual Reality

Virginia Anderlini is 103 years old, and she is about to have her sixth trip into virtual reality.

In real life, she is sitting on the sofa in the bay window of her San Francisco assisted-living facility. Next to her, Dr. Sonya Kim gently tugs the straps that anchor the headset over Anderlini'due south eyes.

Just in the virtual world, Anderlini is on a Hawaiian beach, and it's sunset, and she is surrounded by a glistening body of water and a molten, purple-red sky. If she looks up, she sees the fronds of an enormous palm tree, and falling rainbow specks that dance in the air similar the lite from a disco ball.

"Hello, it'south then nice to see yous again," comes Kim'due south prerecorded voice from inside the headset. "It'due south such a beautiful 24-hour interval today, isn't it?"

"Oh my goodness!" says Anderlini, sounding delighted. She turns her head slowly from side to side, taking in the details of the virtual landscape: little grass shacks, twists of driftwood, outcroppings of volcanic rock. "Hey, that'southward really pretty!"

/ Courtesy of I Caring Team

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Aloha VR combines images of beaches with music, brief text and an audio introduction and welcome from the physician who helped create the program.

"In the back, look at this," she continues, wriggling effectually to run into the imaginary world behind her. "Terry, y'all've got to see this, as well!" she calls to her son, who is watching nearby.

For a virtual reality entrepreneur, Kim has an unusual target audience: the elderly. Anderlini is the first private client for Kim's Aloha VR program, which Kim envisions as a way to assist people relax, an culling to incessantly watching Television and a change of scenery for those who can't go out much.

And for those unhappy in the present day, virtual reality might provide an escape into an immersive other globe that "allows them to forget their chronic pain, anxiety, the fact that they are alone," Kim says. In VR, she says, her company has found "a new care modality to bring to a senior intendance setting like this, to inspire them to alive another day, where they're happy."

'No One Cares About Me'

A former emergency room doctor, Kim establish her way to virtual reality through a series of tough requests. A few years ago, she was running a house-call practice when she received a telephone call for help from a woman whose 88-year-sometime mother had stopped eating and drinking. As a result, she'd made three trips to the ER in a calendar month, racking up more than than $50,000 in medical bills.

Kim knew that seniors often finish up in the hospital for preventable conditions — like dehydration, malnutrition and electrolyte imbalances — exacerbated by loneliness and lack of self-intendance. And when she asked the older woman why she'd stopped eating, Kim recalls, her patient replied: " 'No one loves me. No ane cares almost me. I don't thing anymore. Why should I eat, why should I drinkable, why should I live? I only desire to die today.' "

"When I was driving back home from that visit, I couldn't stop sobbing," Kim says. "As a single woman without any kids, I thought, when I'm her age, who's going to phone call me? Who's going to take care of me?"

That interaction led Kim to found in 2014. Staffers regularly phone seniors at habitation to check on their mood, medications and appointments, and prompt them to chat about positive subjects, like what makes them happy or what they could practice to bring joy to someone else.

But then one day, as Kim was giving a talk nigh her service, a man in the audience asked: "What nigh my mom?" His female parent has dementia, he said, and couldn't have a coherent phone chat. Finding a solution for his mom, Kim says, became her "new homework assignment."

Past hazard, Kim had been reading nearly virtual reality and decided to attend a VR mixer in San Francisco; someone let her use an Oculus headset to walk through a virtual garden, and she "totally fell in dear" with the medium. Convinced the older patients would like it, besides, she borrowed a friend'due south headset and took it to a preventive care conference. Past the time she was done, she already had directors of assisted-living facilities asking about pricing.

That convinced her that the concept could sell, but she wanted to make sure VR could actually brand people feel improve.

Easing Chronic Pain, Anxiety and Depression

"There are over 100 clinical research papers that are already published that show proven positive clinical outcomes using VR in managing chronic pain, feet and depression," she says. "And in dementia patients, all those 3 elements are very common."

/ Courtesy of Dr. Sam Sharar/University of Washington

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These images from an fMRI scan show areas of the encephalon affected by hurting, and how those activated areas quieted down for i examination patient who donned a headset that immersed the patient in a virtual reality globe.

For example, in the 1990s, pioneering researchers at the University of Washington adult SnowWorld, an icy virtual surroundings that reduced pain for burn victims during wound treatment. More than recently, Dr. Albert Rizzo's lab at the Academy of Southern California has helped military veterans who have post-traumatic stress disorder, by offering exposure therapy in virtual environments. The Veterans United Foundation has created virtual reality experiences of veterans' memorials, for vets who tin't travel to run into them. And scientists at the Chronic Pain Research Constitute accept tested a virtual meditative walk meant to help users manage pain and stress.

VR is typically formulated for younger users, and oftentimes asks them to play games, solve puzzles, main new data and move around energetically. But many of Kim's clients utilize wheelchairs; those with advanced dementia cannot read or follow exact commands. About all of them are unfamiliar with the conventions of virtual reality devices, which assume that the user knows to swivel his or her head to have in the 360-degree view, to move around to brand the mural scroll, or to tap objects to interact with them. Instead, many of Kim's clients get through unabridged sessions seated, heads cast down, hands folded in their laps. Sometimes her staff has to gently pivot clients' chins to aid them look to the side.

But exploration and beating puzzles aren't the point of this kind of VR: The environments have no story-line, only scenery. Kim says the proper name Aloha VR is a nod to her experiences working in a Hawaiian emergency room, where she came to admire the country'due south "ohana spirit," a concept that encompasses dearest for extended family and respect for elders.

In the version of the VR plan Anderlini is watching, Kim's voice offers a friendly welcome and reminds her to take her medication to stay good for you. As she speaks, the cursory text pops upwardly in little orangish bubbles that flare-up pleasingly at the finish of each sentence. Versions for the cognitively impaired have no words at all; simply music and the sounds of waves.

"If there are also many words, if there are too many things we're request, they're going to get frustrated," said Kim.

Instead, the signal is to make users experience safe and welcome. "Dementia patients frequently experience lost, because they experience that they don't belong anywhere," says Kim — they may be confused almost their environment or who they are, or estranged from family members overwhelmed by their care. By giving them a cute beach, Kim said, "I desire them to feel found over again."

In addition to having individual clients, Kim conducts group therapy sessions at Bay Surface area assisted-living centers, where a dozen or so people take turns with the goggles. Although some of her clients struggle with verbal communication, they seem to accept plant other means to express enjoyment. One client, Kim said, but blew kisses. Some other hummed happily. A 3rd stole 40 minutes in the headset, repeatedly request for "Only a niggling more than, hon." A few just go to sleep.

The Challenge: Heavy And Expensive Headsets

There are still challenges for the company to work out. The headsets tin can be heavy; information technology can take seniors a while to warm upward to trying them. And while prices for mobile VR equipment have come down, it still costs about $850 for each Samsung Gear VR headset plus the Galaxy smartphone that slides into it — costly plenty that the business firm doesn't accept a rig for each client.

Kim'southward company has created a handful of virtual environments for demonstration purposes, but it will take fourth dimension and money to build more. So, for at present, they also buy off-the-shelf programs to give the clients a footling diversity. (They recently teamed with the Virtual World Gild, a grouping that intends to utilize VR to promote social expert. The group's founder, the University of Washington's virtual interface pioneer Dr. Tom Furness, is now One Caring Team'due south acting primary technology officeholder.)

So far, Virginia Anderlini has taken virtual visits to Venice and Africa and, after her cursory trip to the embankment, spent some time in an autumn-themed meditation session watching leaves autumn. Simply she's seen information technology before, and soon asks for something different. What virtual world would she like to endeavor next? "But something I haven't seen earlier," she says.

But that could be tougher than information technology sounds.

"Y'all know, when you get to this age, I recollect you've seen everything," Anderlini says, and laughs.

This story was produced past KQED'due south health and technology blog,Future of You lot.

Copyright 2021 KQED. To see more, visit .

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Source: https://www.southcarolinapublicradio.org/2016-06-29/virtual-reality-aimed-at-the-elderly-finds-new-fans

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