2023 10 25 Podcast 12 Tamar Weiss and Naomi Gefen

As part of my monthly podcast series, Tech Meets Mental Health, I had the great honor to have a conversation with my old friend and colleague of nearly 25 years, Tamar Weiss, and Naomi Gefen. Both hail from ALYN Hospital, a comprehensive rehabilitation center for physically challenged and disabled children, adolescents and young adults, located in Jerusalem, Israel. These folks have been doing impressive research and clinical intervention work with children and adults using a range of technologies. Both of them are fans of the thoughtful use of VR and other forms of simulation technology in this area to enhance assessment and treatment. This conversation covered a lot of the important topics for understanding how to implement and evaluate these new methods. We also discussed the recent horrific events in Israel due to the terrorist attack of October 7, 2023, and the impact it has had so far on mental and physical healthcare in Israel.

[virtualrealities.school]

Thanks Skip, Tamar and Naomi for a great conversation! I noticed myself nodding along in agreement as I was listening. @Naomi, it's been more than 10 years that Tamar was so kind and invite me to Israel to discuss how to best scan complex environments so they can be used in simulations. We're definitely very close to achieving that so many years later (and were able to do so back in the day as well), it's just a matter of simplifying the technology and making it widely available so larger environments can be scanned. Individual objects and small scenes are already "easy" to scan with many phones and specialized apps, albeit not at the quality that I would like to have. Tamar, Naomi, I wish you and your families all the best in these difficult times.
@Skip, looking forward to the next talks in the series.
Best,
Sebastian