
Virtual Reality Aimed at the Elderly Finds New Fans - vwcx
http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/06/29/483790504/virtual-reality-aimed-at-the-elderly-finds-new-fans
======
aaronwidd
A few weeks ago I went to a family gathering and brought along my Gear VR to
demonstrate to my family. My mother, who is in her late 60's loved it
immensely. I set her up with a street view app and dropped her in the little
village she grew up in as a child. Someplace she hasn't been in years but
talks about every day.

Watching her swirl around and comment on her surroundings was really amusing.
She overheated the Galaxy phone several times and couldn't get enough of it.

My father is 84 years old and now living in a nursing home, where mom sits
with him every day. He suffers from advanced Parkinson's, with increasingly
bad dementia - lots of trouble parsing reality from fantasy, often mixing up
TV shows with events in the real world. His life consists of nurses,
wheelchairs, broadcast TV and a lot of sleep. He's miserable.

Mom pleaded with me to let him use the VR headset. Even though I wanted to, I
just couldn't take the risk of it having some negative effect. He barely
understood digital technology when he was still sharp, so the jarring effects
of seeing an error message, getting a broken visual or something would be
highly alarming in his current frame of mind. Plus I couldn't guarantee he
wouldn't get some sort of psychosis or motion sickness from using it with his
illness.

I really hope more research comes out about how VR affects the elderly, and
people with dementia or other neurological disorders. Being bedridden in a
hospital is the worst possible scenario for anyone and VR could be a godsend
to people in this situation.

~~~
ugh123
Having the same problems with overheating on street view and youtube app.

I have a mother who is bed-bound in a nursing home right now (cancer.. bleh).
One problem i'm having is that she isn't able to navigate the app very easily
(fingers are numb from various medicines). Trying to find a good way to
"mirror" and navigate for her from my phone is a pain. Nothing quite works the
way I think it should. I think if we're going to give the elderly a chance to
view VR, there needs to be some kind of remote assistance built in. I think
this would go a long way

~~~
aaronwidd
This. Remote assistance would be huge

------
matthew-wegner
Most of us reading this thread will die in VR. If I'm laying there in a
hospital bed 50 years from now, I'm certainly going to be reliving
memories/visiting with friends/experiencing therapy in VR, rather than taking
in the bleak room around me...

~~~
yolesaber
You could also go the Huxley route and get injected with LSD on your deathbed.

------
freshhawk
I listened to a podcast yesterday where a psychologist specializing in
intervening with people who have been victimized by coercive negative cults
was talking about how we all thought the increased information available on
the internet would make cults less of a problem, but savvy recruiters have
actually used better communication tools to make dangerous cults more of a
problem than they ever have been.

He was very concerned about just how much power VR environments have over
those inside them, and how destructive that power will be when controlled by
bad actors.

So it's the standard tool argument of course, it's not good or bad, just a
power multiplier for influencing people. But we do tend to ignore the
inevitable abuses of this new power in favour of talking about the positive
uses like this. Although addictive VR environments for lonely elderly people
will be a great way to stop them from getting any physical activity whatsoever
and speeding up the aging process.

~~~
goda90
For those who can't walk, VR would certainly get them sitting up and moving
their head a lot more than a TV does.

------
tyoverby
> And for those unhappy in the present day, virtual reality might provide an
> escape into an immersive other world that "allows them to forget their
> chronic pain, anxiety, the fact that they are alone," Kim says.

Maybe I should get a Vive after all!

~~~
sdegutis
When I was 12, my dad asked what I wanted for Christmas. I told him I really
wanted a pet dog. I had no friends and was lonely all the time, so I thought a
dog might make me feel less lonely. So he got me Dogz for Windows 95 on CD-
ROM. It had the opposite effect.

~~~
moron4hire
There is serious academic research that disagrees with your anecdote.

~~~
knodi123
I guess you're right, maybe he didn't feel what he thought he felt. :-P

~~~
moron4hire
He edited his post. He originally made the statement that his experience
proved VR therapy was a stupid idea.

~~~
sdegutis
I did edit it a little, but only to make it (slightly) more tactful.

------
hosh
Yes! That's exactly the kind of VR application I'm hoping folks would develop.

Tangent: "Elders React to Oculus Rift"
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZ8Xj_I3aNU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZ8Xj_I3aNU)

------
aab0
"And while prices for mobile VR equipment have come down, it still costs about
$850 for each Samsung Gear VR headset plus the Galaxy smartphone that slides
into it — costly enough that the firm doesn't have a rig for each client."

I thought Samsung Gear VR cost like $100 and the smartphones were like $400,
tops?

~~~
chipperyman573
The cheapest phone that can be officially used in the GearVR (Galaxy s6, no
curve) costs $579.99 unlocked from carrier (no contract). The gear VR is an
extra $100, so the total cost is about $700. A bit shy of $850 but still a
long ways away from cheap.

------
jpindar
Its no news that older people form a large part of the userbase of Open Sim
type virtual worlds such as Inworldz.

In virtual worlds, you can be whoever you want to be. Who wouldn't want to be
young again? Forever young, forever beautiful, have the home of your dreams
(and more land than you could ever own in RL) for a relatively small price...
go out dancing (or roleplaying or riding motorcycles or whatever) every night
without leaving your RL home... create art and other real people give you real
money for it (small amounts, but still..)

------
reasonattlm
There is way too much acceptance and compensation in the way people approach
problems relating to old age. It just doesn't exist in other fields in the
same way. So much is done atop the axiom that whatever is wrong with the old -
in a biological, physical sense - is set in stone and cannot be changed, and
thus, collectively, vast resources are addressed to coping or compensating
rather than addressing. Problems should be solved, not papered over.

~~~
kbenson
On the one hand, I agree that aging and the problems associated with it are
often treated as unavoidable to the future detriment of us all, but on the
other hand, it's also definitely investing our time and effort where we get
the most return (given that we're pretty sure we'll get a return, which isn't
_necessarily_ true of trying to _eliminate_ the ills of old age).

~~~
zardo
My grandparents watch people 15 years younger than them get fat on the
cafeteria food served in their retirement community, and move down the hall to
more and more involved nursing care until they die of heart failure.

Most diseases of old age are diseases of lifestyle, we know how to cure them,
we just don't know how to get people to take the medicine.

~~~
794CD01
Most of the time we also know how to get people to take the medicine, but an
outdated code of ethics prevents us from doing it.

~~~
emiliobumachar
What do you mean? Could you please elaborate?

~~~
Something1234
He means forcing them. It's for your own good. It's taking the decision out of
their hands.

~~~
794CD01
Their hands are not the problem, it's the brain driving those hands that
shouldn't be trusted.

------
EGreg
Reminds me of this movie:

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Final_Cut_(2004_film)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Final_Cut_\(2004_film\))

------
intrasight
There are medical risks. I assume, like with anything clinical, you'll need a
doctor's prescription for VR.

