Apotek Hjärtat in Sweden is using Happy Place, a series of virtual-reality outdoor scenes, as a supplement to traditional pharmaceutical pain relief treatments.
Distracting the mind with virtual scenes of nature and calm stimuli is increasingly being found to be an effective method of relieving temporary pain. A wide range of virtual reality (VR) content has been demonstrated to reduce pain in a range of situations.
Working with start-up Mimerse, a therapeutic app developer, Sweden’s Apotek Hjärtat pharmacies created the VR ‘Happy Place’. Designed to supplement traditional pharmaceutical treatments, Happy Place can help alleviate aches and pains like those caused by vaccinations, toothache, menstrual cramps, tattoos and sore muscles, and even serious burns. VR technology, by definition, creates an audiovisual illusion displacing the user into a digitally created world, something one study found to be as effective as narcotics in alleviating pain.
Using a painterly style of artwork, Happy Place tracks users’ eye movements, eliminating the need for extensive instructions and buttons. Users can interact with the scenes as much or as little as they like. Some people prefer to gaze at the scenery, whereas others prefer the challenge of finding the objects that, when gazed upon for a bit longer than usual, unveil new aspects of the environment.
Despite numerous research projects and companies investigating pain distraction in VR, before Mimerse developed Happy Place there was no publicly available app with this explicitly intended use. A successful pain relief VR platform has to:
The developers wanted to create something that satisfied the demands of those in pain that could be made available in Apotek Hjärtat’s primary care clinics as well as free of charge. They cited their biggest challenge, besides a tight budget, as appealing to, and working for, as many different types of people, pain level and situation possible.
Immersive virtual reality pain distraction was first explored by Hoffman & Patterson at the University of Washington Seattle and Harborview Burn Center. Companies like DeepStream VR (who also have compiled a list of relevant research literature) and AppliedVR have developed the concept further commercially. Mimerse took inspiration from this research, as well as guided meditation VR and virtual nature research, open-world games and a series of Swedish ‘Where’s Wally?’-style books where readers can view the densely illustrated pages time and time again, noticing different things upon each viewing.
The painterly style of the scenes found in Happy Place come from the counter-intuitive fact about virtual reality, that aiming for realism might not be the best choice to achieve maximum presence. A scene in Oculus Dream Deck (a VR demo-reel) convinced Mimerse that the popular Low Poly art style was viable for their project. Despite the lack of geometric details and textures, it felt like a very immersive place. The art style also suited the project both in terms of budget and hardware limitations.
Virtual reality is being used as a supplement to a number of different industries, from virtual crime scene re-enactments for jurors to emergency birth care education. As the technology improves and more money is invested, there should be no limit to its potential applications.
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Website: www.apotekhjartat.se
Contact: william@mimerse.com
Company name: Apotek Hjärtat
Innovation name: Happy Place
Country: Sweden
Industry: Health & wellbeing