Virtual Environments for Health

Reporter Daniel Cressey takes a trip to the University of Birmingham for a walk through a virtual world. By recreating the positive effects of spending time in natural environments, Bob Stone and his team hope to help those who can't get out and about by bringing these environments to them.

[roidroid]

I remember seeing a similar system (but with VR goggles) used for burn victims. They would be immersed in a virtual snow environment while the nurses re-dressed their wounds (a normally painful procedure). It seemed to work, taking their minds off of it.

There was another one that was treating people with fear of spiders with gradually increasing realism, another treating heights, and another treating PTSD.
Wow they must be able to treat so much stuff with VR by now.

[roidroid]

@Films4You Agoraphobia isn't a fear of going outside, it's actually just what happens when a specific unrelated phobia (ie: fear of spiders, fear of social situations, fear of heights, etc) gets SO BAD that the user finds it hard to leave their safe home environment - as they may be confronted with what triggers their fear.

So to treat it with a video game, you'd have to carefully and slowly incorporate that SPECIFIC trigger into the game (spiders, heights, people, whatever it is).

[ivonz]

I definitely agree that this approach has a lot of potential - sometimes just by looking at photos of nature one can start feeling relaxed. However I do think they still have a long way to go to make the graphics much much better - maybe the technology just isn't there yet, but if they could use actual videos of real nature, beaches and scenery and try to interface it within this program I think it would be much more realistic and the health benefits would increase as well. Neat concept though!

[grandexandi]

Cool. I've been using video games to relax in such a way since I played The Legend of Zelda on my Nintendo 64. In fact, I always considered this as criteria when buying new games, asking myself how much could I stroll around in the virtual environment, and how much would I enjoy it, in order to decide which games to buy. In Zelda, I spent a lot of time just riding my horse in the open field, exploring each rock and tree, discovering the boundaries of the land. Unfortunately this is not something that game developers focus on... I wish there were more games with no real objectives, stories, etc. What today is mainly classified under the 'experimental game' category. Recently I was surprised, in a very good way, by a game called Proteus. The graphics are so, so simple, really pixelated, like a two-dimensional Minecraft, but it hits the spot just right. Well, since I mentioned it, I believe Minecraft is being vastly used with this purpose too. People want to build their ideal worlds and just relax in it. That's how I played The Sims.

[michaelviggars]

Surely there are better pre-existing landscapes within the gaming industry? Seems like a fairly pointless expense.

[RyderSpearmann]

It's already available...it's called Second Life, and it's free.

Of course there are other people there... so you can socialize... if you wish.

The graphics are as good or better.

I expect that taxpayers are having to pay for this... even though its already available, and has been for years.

[eleanoreandthelost]

I'm Eleanore from 'Eleanore & the Lost' and I wrote the song for the WWF's 50 year nationwide U.K anniversary project this year called 'My True Nature'. Please visit our website wwweleanoreandthelostcom to hear the song 'My True Nature' or our channel: eleanoreandthelost to see some of our other videos.

[Dr.O]

Aahhrg.. the low framerate makes me nauseous.

[roidroid]

@Films4You ie: concepts used in this simulation could be used to treat social phobia perhaps:
watch?v=uUjPSqsvvnA

I've been thinking about this a lot hehe :)

[ljfdeepblue]

already sick of staring at screen all day.

[Muonium]

Sweet FPS on that sim! What is this, 1994? I don't think I've ever seen a virtual reality simulator that I've been massively underwhelmed by, but this is just beyond pathetic. C'mon people. How are patients supposed to "immerse" themselves in what barely rises to the level of being a cheesy low-resolution slideshow?