Session 8: Virtual Worlds for Health and Wellbeing

2nd Global Conference

Monday 12th March – Wednesday 14th March 2012
Prague, Czech Republic

A Low Tech Approach to Management of Second Life Virtual Patients
Rose Heaney
University of East London, UK

The university of East London (UEL)’s school of Health, Sport and Bioscience has created a multi-disciplinary polyclinic in Second Life (SL) for use by herbal medicine, physiotherapy and podiatry students. Each discipline has its own area consisting of an outpatient clinic (herbal medicine and podiatry) or hospital ward (physiotherapy) where students interact via their avatars with virtual patients and related objects e.g. Xrays, test results and patient notes to develop their clinical reasoning skills.

Although SL (and virtual worlds generally) are well established as platforms for this kind of use they present significant challenges to the average academic, not least the specialist skills that are required both to develop and operate the environment. In fact, inability to maintain such developments in the longer term, without the (often expensive) input of specialist developers, increasingly makes them unviable. From the outset a key objective was to build sustainability into the design by devising a generic virtual patient model usable across disciplines and driven by a backend database via which patient cases can be added to SL with minimal specialist expertise once the basic infrastructure of the clinical environment is in place. This model has evolved over a couple of years and continues to evolve as it is exposed to a wider range of staff and students.

The database interface enables non-technical users to create patient cases by using a series of forms on which, amongst other things, they define the avatar / patient dialogue, select graphic objects and media files and choose patient characteristics such as appearance and gender. The most challenging aspect of this process has been to provide an efficient and straightforward means of defining keyword triggers and associated responses to allow for meaningful conversation between patient and avatar, without which the educational value is weakened.

Download Draft Conference Paper (pdf)

Avatar-based Recovery: Combine Use of Virtual Reality Platform and Web-based Curriculum for Substance Abuse Treatment
Ivana Steigman
Thrive Research, Greenleaf Medical, USA

This presentation provides an overview of current virtual reality modalities in the field of addiction and recovery with a detailed look at avatar based VR platforms, future VR development and research.

The Avatar Based Recovery Program that will be presented is based on a question of “how to help people in recovery to react and behave differently in their natural environments.” The presenter has employed the principles of virtual reality-based exposure therapy to help patients learn new responses to the people, places, and things in and around their home environments. By re-creating natural living environments virtual platform in this therapeutic context is customized to fit different patient experiences in real life. Social or drug-trade interactions can be simulated in this setting, which in turn allows those who control the avatars to practice alternative behaviors and develop cognitive strategies to combat cravings that may lead to relapse.

Online VR platform has the potential for delivery of new variations of direct-care services to those who cannot make it to a treatment centers due to physical, mental, or emotional disabilities, or other limitations such as physical distance.

For those who may not be ready for an actual treatment center, virtual reality platform provides a less threatening way to investigate and demystify what treatment and recovery involve. The convenience and relative anonymity of VR meetings seems to be less stigmatizing and intimidating, thus making it more productive and attractive. Giving this type of treatment an element of fun, seems to enhance the potential for success in relapse prevention.

his emerging Web-based treatment option focuses on prevention and advocacy and functions as an adjunct to residential or outpatient treatment where there is often little opportunity for effective follow-up care. VR attempts to bridge a post-in-patient gap in services as a means to provide follow-up communication and community.