VR Health

Singer Jewel Is Offering Mental Health Support In VR

March 13, 2023 From vrscout

Mental health support is just a headset away.

Do you remember Jewel, the Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter who graced us with such memorable songs as “Who Will Save Your Soul” and “You Were Meant For Me”? Well, she’s back, and she’s dishing out some much-needed mental health support to the VR community.

Recently, the multiplatinum music artist appeared on the news show CUOMO to chat about Innerworld, a VR metaverse she co-founded that offers evidence-based mental health tools and peer-to-peer support to those struggling with various mental complications, from anxiety and depression to attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

The platform offers a variety of beneficial resources and is monitored by a team of human operators as well as an artificial intelligence (AI) system that keeps a lookout for keywords that may indicate immediate self-harm.

“What I’ve done in the Foundation for the past 20 years is a peer-to-peer model, and we actually see a lot more profound results than one-on-one,” said Jewel. “I think psychotherapy is great, but it isn’t something everybody has access to. And meditation is incredibly important and there are so many great meditation apps out there but what I’ve learned is that meditation puts you in position to change, but then you need behavioral tools to start to change actual habits.”

Credit: Innerworld

“I had been tasking myself to come up with solutions that were genuinely scalable. And for me, VR was really where I was focusing,” she added. “We have a lot of people who use this as a supplement to their therapeutic work and we have people who don’t have access to therapeutic or other traditional service. They are getting incredible results, and there are people from all over the world—which is what’s so amazing about VR.”

Innerworld is available for free in VR on Meta Quest, PC, and iOS devices. For more information visit inner.world.

Feature Image Credit: Henry Laurisch

VR Could Lower The Need For Sedation During Surgery

September 22, 2022 From vrscout

Who needs drugs when you can meditate in a serene meadow during surgery?

We’ve seen immersive technology used for a variety of medicinal purposes over the years. This includes everything from augmented reality (AR) glasses EMTs can use to convey critical information to health centers to VR hospital tours designed specifically for children. We’ve also begun to see immersive technology used as an alternative to anesthetic drugs, which can sometimes cause adverse side effects.

Credit: NOMADEEC Telemedicine

According to a report by MIT Technology Review, a team of researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center has published a study in which VR technology was used to reduce pain for patients during surgery. As part of the experiment, a group of 34 patients undergoing elective hand surgery were split into two equal groups.

One group was given VR headsets they could use to immerse themselves in a variety of relaxing content (guided meditation, serene forests, relaxing meadows) while the other group relied solely on anesthetics. The report states that those with VR entertainment requested significantly less sedation (125.3 milligrams per hour compared to an average of 750.6 milligrams per hour) compared to those without.

“VR use has expanded from the entertainment sector to the fields of medical education, rehabilitation, and the management of mental health and chronic pain,” said the research team in their report. “VR’s purported benefit in the management of patients with pain or anxiety is through providing an immersive experience capable of distracting the mind from processing noxious stimuli.”

“Although VR has been shown to provide effective anxiolysis for minor procedures such as endoscopy and dressing changes, currently there is only limited evidence to support VR’s effectiveness during surgery. Given this, we conducted a randomized, controlled clinical trial with the objective of investigating whether VR immersion could reduce the amount of sedatives administered during hand surgery with regional anesthesia and MAC as compared to MAC alone.”

VR technology also had a noticeable impact on recovery time, with VR users spending roughly 63 minutes in recovery as opposed to 75 minutes. While feedback has been positive, the team admits that the results may have been skewed. Patients could have gone into their surgery already convinced that VR would help them with pain management. Still, these are some encouraging results.

For more information check out the research team’s full report here.

Image Credit: Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center

VR Experience Simulates The Feeling Of LSD & Mushrooms

August 9, 2022 From vrscout

Could virtual psychedelics have a positive impact on our mental health?

Isness-D is a therapeutic VR experience capable of inducing a sense of self-transcendence similar to a medium dose of LSD or magic mushrooms. The app was developed by David Glowacki, a scientist and digital artist who suffered a near-death experience roughly 15 years ago.

During the accident, Glowacki claims that his body transformed into a glowing ball of light which began to merge with the world around him. He reports having felt a sense of genuine peace, a feeling he hopes to share with others via his mind-altering VR experience.

According to a study by Nature Scientific Reports, Isness-D was shown to have the same effect as a medium dose of psilocybin, the primary component of psychedelic mushrooms, or LSD. The experience itself sounds just as trippy as you’d imagine.

Isness-D is a multiperson experience with support for up to four to five people, regardless of their physical locations. Each user is portrayed as a ball of light surrounded by a plume of smoke. Well, that’s how it starts at least.

Participating in a process called “energetic coalescence,” users’ bodies overlap with one another, offering a sense of “oneness” similar to the feeling experienced by Glowacki. A study involving 75 subjects showed that Isness-D offers an experience near indistinguishable from 20 milligrams of psilocybin or 200 micrograms of LSD.

Credit: David Glowacki

“What happens in VR is that sense of completely forgetting about the existence of the external world,” said Agnieszka Sekula, a PhD candidate at the Centre for Human Psychopharmacology while speaking to MIT Technology Review. “So there is definitely similarity there to this sense of experiencing an alternate reality under psychedelics that feels more real than what’s actually out there.”

Isness-D is currently being utilized as a therapeutic tool for cancer patients as part of a partnership with VR startup aNUma.

Image Credit: David Glowacki

How VR/AR Technology Is Being Used To Treat Autism

April 27, 2022 From vrscout

XRHealth brings its unique VR/AR therapy to the United States.

XRHealth, a VR/AR technology company specializing in digital healthcare, today announced plans to bring its unique XR therapy to ASD (autism spectrum disorder) patients located in the United States.

Previously available in Australia, the technology has been used to treat the effects of autism, from anxiety and stress to attention, memory, mobility/coordination, and frustration tolerance. XRHealth’s healthcare platform offers a variety of professional services. This includes one-on-one meet-ups with XRHealth therapists as well as virtual group sessions, all of which accessible remotely using modern VR headsets.

These virtual sessions tackle everything from physical occupational therapy to behavioral health. All the while the system tracks the performances of both the patient as well as the therapist, providing useful insights in the form of progress reports.

“XRHealth is providing a virtual environment similar to gaming for patients with ASD which is tailored perfectly for children who want to be engaged in a way that is familiar,” said Eran Orr, Founder & CEO of XRHealth in an official release. “Because of the unique and fun environment, patients are more likely to comply with treatment plans since they enjoy the process.”

For ASD patients and their respective care-givers, XRHealth’s VR/AR platform represents a more convenient and readily-accessible therapy process. Getting an ASD patient from their home to the therapists office can often be a challenge for care-givers. Using XRHealth, patients receive the same level of support right from home using the power of VR and AR technology.

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention reports that 5,437,988 (2.21%) US adults have been diagnosed with ASD, with those numbers expected to increase over time. Readily accessible programs such as XRHealth will only become more important as patients continue to seek cheaper and more convenient methods of treatment.

Founded in 2016, XRHealth has established itself as one of the most prevalent VR healthcare solutions thanks to its FDA and CE registered medical Extended Reality (XR) technology and use of licensed physicians. The company also partners with various hospitals, healthcare organizations, and rehabilitation centers.

For more information on XRHealth’s other healthcare offerings visit xr.health.

Image Credit: XRHealth