In 2015 my grandfather’s physical health started to deteriorate, so he took his own life. Although my family will never know exactly “why” he decided to do this, the tragedy inspired me to research challenges facing elderly populations in attempt to better understand my late grandfather. I started to research mental health issues in older populations and found that depression and isolation are common, but also found research suggesting that older people in long term care facilities are significantly more susceptible to mental illness and disorders that the general elderly population, and the general population as a whole. Some studies suggest older people in long term care facilities are twice as likely to be clinically diagnosed with depression in comparison to the general population (13% vs 6.7%), and other research found that up to 50% of long term care residents report feelings of depression.
I have always wanted to use cutting edge technology to improve mental health. I saw so many companies using technology to exploit the weaknesses of the human mind, such as addictive mobile games or targeted advertising in social media apps. When Oculus released their first VR headset I knew the technology had unparalleled potential to change human behavior, for good or bad.
I wanted to learn more about VR technology and its potential to change behavior, so I went through the literature and attended multiple healthcare technology conferences. Since the early 1970’s, over 3000 academic and clinical studies have demonstrated that VR can be used to treat 18 classes of health disorders, including PTSD and anxiety.
In 2017 I began working with caregivers in long term care facilities to better understand mental-health-related challenges facing residents of their facilities, and to determine how virtual reality can help residents alleviate some of those challenges in a therapeutic way.
I founded Luciton Virtual, LLC, in 2018 to improve health & wellness using virtual reality. We completed a 10-week pilot study in one long term care facility, which suggested that virtual reality could increase social engagement, improve mood, and was the only activity that brought certain isolated individuals out of their rooms to interact with other residents.
One of the residents involved in the pilot study is from Hawaii and suffers from mild dementia and depression. She experienced a tropical island simulation set to nostalgic music from her young adulthood. Ten other residents sat nearby and watched a monitor that showed what she was experiencing. During the simulation, the resident was clearly enjoying the experience and shared a heartwarming story with the group about skinny dipping as a child in a bay very similar to the one shown in the simulation. Some residents smiled, and other residents cried, because she had never told this story before. After the VR session, the residents continued the discussion, including details about the resident’s childhood growing up in Hawaii. Her caregiver believes that the VR program triggered the memory of those events, which she had previously forgotten.
Virtual Reality has tremendous power to do good for people, because it helps motivate them to change. I’m very excited to be working on meaningful projects that use such an important, powerful, and fun medium.
What behavior do you want to change?