DeepStream VR uses virtual reality gaming to help reduce physical pain in burn victims.
Virtual reality (VR) companies are constantly exploring new ways to integrate the tech into different industries, and we are seeing many applications in gaming, retail and tourism. But perhaps one of the most impressive means of applying VR is in health care. We have already seen VR flatforms being used for pain relief with Swedish start-up Mimerse’s Happy Place. Deepstream VR has developed a similar platform with a distracting gameplay element.
Deepstream VR is a start-up formed by Firsthand Technology’s co-founders, Howard Rose and Ari Hollander. The game COOL! creates a virtual world designed to ease pain – it aims to distract burn patients from the pain of getting their wounds cleaned or their skin grafted with an immersive first-person game, with a cute otter as a companion.
COOL! transports users on a journey through a beautiful landscape of changing seasons. They meet and play with the creatures living there. Tasks including tossing the otters a fish and pelting them with magic orbs to transform them into fantastic colours. The landscape holds secret puzzles, with rocks that spin and caves clustered with crystals.
During gameplay, each player can find their own mix of active fun and relaxation; they control how the game works. The gameplay can be endless; the user decides how much time they want to spend interacting with the VR environment and how they move through it, that is, in what speed and direction. Biosensors help induce a flow state in the user by controlling the intensity of the experience to maximize its benefits. The clinical interface controls the experience and tracks its outcomes.
MRI brain scans showed a significant reduction in pain related to brain activity in people using the game, and participants also reported feeling less pain. The technology has been employed by the US military in Iraq and Afghanistan, helping doctors reduce patient reliance on medication to treat pain. In a TedMed talk, Rose said it was time to ‘embrace this technology and use this opportunity for health’.
There have been some concerns about the negative aspects of using VR on patients. Dr Bernie Garrett of the University of British Columbia School of Nursing describes a patient in his studies who experienced severe motion sickness from VR. Deepstream acknowledges that, unless carefully designed, virtual worlds can indeed induce motion sickness, but insist that they have years of experience building virtual worlds that are comfortable and provide a very positive experience to a wide range of people. While it’s true that some people just don’t react well to the VR experience, if the virtual worlds are well designed and the equipment is of high quality, problems of motion sickness can be almost eliminated.
COOL! is the latest release from the creators of 2008’s SnowWorld, the groundbreaking research application that established the clinical use of VR for burn patients and wound care. SnowWorld plunged users into an immersive snowy landscape with huge icebergs, caves and snowmen, and helped to mentally distract those in severe pain from burns.
The improvement in interface and hardware quality since then means that pain relief from VR is now more successful than ever. The conclusion for health care is that VR can be very effective if it is designed specifically for the needs and challenges of the people who will use it.
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Website: firsthand.com
Contact: info@firsthand.com
Company name: Deepstream VR
Innovation name: COOL!
Country: United States