We don't specifically track this - but we make sure to avoid things that may be disconcerting to the users. (Loud noises, tinnitus like sounds and other distracting things).

There are research papers on music and therapy however that could be interesting to read.

Inspiration after a friend of mine had a brain stroke. Combined with being a indie developer/hobbyist for mange years using Unreal Engine.

I don't know what the best way into the games industry these days is- it can be very hard. But starting off small, doing your own projects and getting noticed, building a portfolio with VR things is always a good way to go about it I believe.

I was inspired after a friend of mine suffered a brain stroke in his 40s. He was rather severely afflicted and sits in a wheelchair now - but he never gave up. Always thought. He even bought a belted wheelchair and mounted his gun on it - still goes moose hunting.

I spent a lot of time with him talking about rehab and he told me how extremely boring some of the stuff was, and how Wii games were cool but some were very hard for him. And that kinda started it all.

We spent about 2000 volunteer hours on the project. But making the life of just one patient better was worth it. And we know we did. It's a great blessing to be able to help someone in this way.

Aye, one of the reasons we were accepted by Sunnaas Specialist hospital is that we had the accessibility first mindset.

We designed all of our games to be playable seated or standing - and with only one arm (minus one game). We've got a few variations of the controller scheme - some include hold-to-grab, auto-grab and click to release, or click to grab and click to release.
We also allow for the use of rebinding actions to Microsoft Adaptive Controller if needed.

We spent a lot of time designing the world: We wanted relatively high fidelity (https://youtu.be/RG2JmztWGhY This was a very early concept but gets the point across). We also took care to choose colours that aren't distracting.

The importance of not cluttering the world with too many items, while still making it believable was a difficult but important balancing point too.

Sound and audio adjustments, avoiding distracting or uncomfortable sounds. Voice over on every button and menu, including descriptions for the games.

We also have a menu to adjust more weird settings like hue, contrast. But we do not recommend anyone to use these unless there are specific reasons for it.

Hah,

I heard they sold out 80,000 tickets in one hour - so I guess someone is excited for them at least.

Last concert I went to was Black Sabbath back God-knows-When :)

They've been amazing partners in the project, same with LHL Hjerneslag and the Dam Foundation :)

I have around 6000 hours in VR - and still I can make silly mistakes like this from time to time. :D

We worked with Sunnaas Specialist Hospital during the project :)

Thank you for being here! :)

Re-adjustment to "real life" is rather quick - some patients may be disoriented for a few seconds (adjusting to light, space) but nothing serious. Out of our 25 patients we had no one suffer dizziness or falling during or after gameplay.

Most patients are helped with donning the VR kit, and also helped with taking it off. There is always a therapist within arm's reach in case of any issues. Many patients also play seated, while other prefer standing.

When they get better - they can opt in for harder difficulties, or increase the speed of the games :) Leader boards with dates and times help encourage the progression.

Absolutely!

We've got a few different games in our "Tropical Island hub" where you can walk around freely in VR:

Bowling (with a twist) that helps users develop underhand movement and coordination.

Bow Game that helps users with sequential movement, aimed to increase general mobility and arm/eye coordination while aiming at targets. There is also a component of reaction speed as targets go up and down. Speed can be adjusted.

We've got a volleyball style game which promotes overhead movement/boxing. Occupational therapist seems to love this one in particular because of the moment it promotes.

Other games include free hand tower building and something that is similar to beat sabre, but with colour switching on the sword. The latter one in particular is very well received by those with a bit more function - but can be played by everyone.

That is the goal. Increased mobility and perhaps regaining some lost function in hand/arms/legs. :)

Turning on no-fail and enabling one-handed mode inside Beat Sabre has been rather well received among users in our experience. You still get to play and have fun - without having the experience ruined by things they cannot interact with.

We've seen patients with only one-armed mobility play Beat Sabre, and all our mini games (minus one) is made to be played both standing, sitting and with just one arm/side.

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Point and click games can be a great tool for spacial awareness and memory perhaps? I don't know of any specific research on this particular form - but it sounds interesting.

I touched a bit on this earlier but:

Patients reports enjoying training through games. They experience it as something fun rather than "rehabilitation" - making them engage more with training, which in turn can increase the recovery rate. You can also bring games with you home.

Our software mimics real life movements and gives incentives for doing movement patterns that we provoke through gameplay. Especially more unnatural movements that are beneficial to general mobility/movement.

There are games that focuses on these topics as well, our didn't but - given funding and time it would be an interesting venue to explore. Especially PTSD which some military forces already do VR experiments with.

I think that stories and narrative experiences can be powerful tools for people to identify with and process experiences with.

Commercially available for general brain trauma rehabilitation - assuming that the patient has the abilities to play it (with or without assists like one handed, no fail etc) I think that Beat Sabre is a genius piece of software. Great hand/eye coordination, balance and reaction speed training.

Software like the one we made is a bit more specialized and tries to do more specific things and movements - great for institutional use, especially due to special accessibility features.

Exciting question - feel free to poke about more topics :)

Thanks for being here!

It's an interesting question. Our software that we developed in particular doesn't focus on psychological trauma - However:

There are software projects that focus on PTSD and crisis handling in combination with traditional therapy, there are some Army projects doing this.

Other venues of VR usage are phobia through exposure therapy. Also in combination with qualified personnel.

From a personal standpoint - I could see use cases that involves preparing and easing in people that are transitioning to self-living after being in institutions. (Digital twins of soon-to-be-homes and training daily tasks for example).

I am afraid I don't consider myself qualified enough to offer advice on this.

However, from what I understand - memory research is a constant field of development that has continues progression as we understand more and more about our brains.

I hope that in time you will be able to recover some lost memory - and even if not - get the chance to create new and wonderful ones.

Hah,
I think my generation (born in the 80s) grew up with all these tech horror movies - Terminator and Skynet, Matrix and so on. We might be a bit environmentally challenged :>

I think that in order to sell a virtual reality, it has to be better than our own. And I don't know how the future will be in 50 years - it might be amazing, but also not so amazing.

We know that loneliness is on the rise - perhaps 8 hours of relaxing on a virtual beach that you perceive to be completely real isn't the worst idea after logging of your work computer then :) Or who knows - bring you entire family to Disney World after dinner!

I am reluctant to even predict 5-10 years into the future at this point - but if I had a wild and somewhat dystopian guess, it would be something along the lines of this:

(Remember, 50 years is a LONG time.)

Full body immersion with a neural interface. Hopefully not hackable.This may be the way we'll make user friction low enough for people to live in virtual worlds - as dystopian as that may be.

Current VR tech and "immersive" experiences has a too steep barrier of entry for mainstream B2C use - for people to adapt such a tech it needs to be almost as simple as using a remote control. Neural interfaces would fix that.

With our VR Games / Software we pull the users out of hospitals and onto a tropical resort - we mimic movement and exercises that are beneficial to patients through fun activities. Our patients report that it's exciting, and that they forget that they are in a hospital - every one of our 25 patients reported it didn't feel like rehabilitation.

In short - they had fun. :)

Hour to Hour - initial VR research shows the same results as normal training, however we see a much lower drop-off rate from rehabilitation using games vs traditional methods. (Upwards 200% better engagement in some cases).

There is still a lot of research to be done and peer reviewed in general on VR - but it is a promising avenue - and the patients love it.

VR also has a painkilling effect, most likely related to the immersion that it brings. "Most" people forget their location awareness after 30-60 seconds.

I will start a bit early with answering - may it give some ideas for questions :)

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I think that it's closing in on that point in some cases. If you take a look at Megascans assets - you need to take a real hard look to realise it is computer graphics.

It may take some time to get at that level in your "average game" - but I am confident it will happen.

Another interesting thing with things like VR: "Most" people lose a sense of where they are within 30-60 seconds. Users experience a very high degree of immersion using VR. No one will forget that they have a VR headset on them, but it does show us that we can trick the brain relatively easily. In fact - we see a very real, and relatively powerful painkilling effect using VR on patients with chronic, or even acute pain.