Virtual Reality (VR) is being used in Hospices to transport patients away from their beds in England.
With VR technology, patients could get “lost in the moment” as Janet, a 71-year-old lady described the experience.
They can change their reality for a while, allowing them to feel they are immersed in the surroundings of the environment that this technology recreates. The use of this technology allows distraction from pain or anxiety.
This is how it works: Patients put on a motion-sensing VR headset (and sometimes handheld controllers) and their outside environment vanishes. Instead, it is instantly and completely replaced with a 360-degree virtual world that they can enter, displaying relaxing scenes, sounds and objects so the patient move around in, and interact with. They may find themselves beneath the ocean, surrounded by dolphins for example. As they float along, they can look up and see the sun shining through the water’s surface. Look down and see dolphins swimming around and below them. They can hear the echo of the underwater world and the sounds of the big mammals that surround them.
The experience feels real, and that’s how the brain processes it, that’s why it has so much therapeutic power and potential.
Read Janet’s experience HERE to find out how she benefited from this fantastic innovation for patients.