Is anyone doing controller health and education research? As well as Hand-tracking?
TACTILE learning (hand learning) is key to Early Childhood Development. What a child grows up with as far as handheld objects (apples, bananas, cards, etc). Same is true for technology like controllers, keyboards, tablets. They change how neural networks are developed within the brain. Also, build muscle and forms musclememory (prioprerception). So should childrens' games have time limits and parental controls for that? And should they offer cross-platform-controller function/s to promote more body diversity? How would the software have to be configured to increase maximum benefit? Also, have to consider the differences in hand size as well as missing fingers, thumbs, or radiculopathy and other nerve conditions, etc. Not to sound Ageist, but isn't this a way to improve the present and future, even for the elderly? Hand-tracking for amputees and prosthetics? Add tags
Launchpad update - Peggy Wu
Hello all, Since participating in the launchpad event, I have begun working on a VR based project to support Aphasia therapy. Aphasia is a communication disorder often attributed to neurological damage, e.g. stroke survivors who loose capabilities in speech but are otherwise cognitively intact. I have conducted initial interviews with experts for initial problem definition and system design, and am currently defining the use cases, user experience, and functional requirements of the system for the three user groups - therapist, patients, and informal caregivers. We are creating a VR enabled tool that can bring all three groups together in creative, comfortable, and fun settings to carry out the therapy. The use of environments and artifacts can heavily influence the effectiveness of speech therapy since objects and environments are incredible communication tools. My thesis is that the ability to teleport to any virtual environment will dramatically increase the capabilities of the therapist to encourage active participation from clients. I hope to complete the system design within the next month and begin more indepth interviews with therapists and other Aphasia experts to finalize designs and begin system engineering and content creation. Please contact me if you are interested in finding out more, if you have a related story you would like to share, or if you would like to help! Until next time, Peggy
Illya Szilak (DrSzilak) Weekly Dev Blog: ZantaVR --creating medically therapeutic VR experiences
I was one of those people who saw VR for the first time and realized I was seeing the future. As a primary care physician I am acutely aware of the time pressures under which medical professionals operate. As a doc who ran our opiate addiction/Suboxone clinic, I am also acutely aware of the need for new measures to treat what have become chronic pervasive problems for my patients: chronic pain, general anxiety, depression, and addiction. I am also interested in improving quality of life for older individuals through VR--these include opportunities for social interaction, increased use of cognitive functions and creativity, increased mobility, and reframing the process of dying. As a mom, one of my concerns is developing therapeutic experiences to treat pain and distress in children as well. To address these needs, I have created ZantaVR, a company dedicated to creating cost-effective , patient-empowering, proven therapeutic VR experiences which complement conventional and integrative medicine and which are easily integrated into patient and provider routines. In addition, we aim to educate consumers and health-care providers about VR technology through the development of protocols for use, a website, training materials and support and to improve the knowledge base of VR therapeutics through the creation of research partnerships, including clinical trials and potentially fMRI or other basic science neuroscience studies. We are looking for academic and scientific collaborators and tech and business people interested in a unique early startup. Our plan is to apply for an SBIR grant in the December 2016 cycle. This week we put out calls for a product design consultant to create a unique "cardboard" type headset that we will need for our first therapeutic experience and for the grant application.
