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EzekielNOR237 karma

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.

EzekielNOR68 karma

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.

EzekielNOR68 karma

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.

EzekielNOR32 karma

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.

EzekielNOR28 karma

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!