Virtual Reality Used to Combat Isolation and Improve Health

But a handful of entrepreneurs want to exploit VR’s uncanny ability to evoke reality for more therapeutic purposes, with potentially far-reaching consequences for older adults. 

VR for assisted living, isolation

A troupe of MIT grad students and technology entrepreneurs in 2015 launched a company called  Rendever , which offers VR programming for adults in assisted living as well as for others who are suffering from social isolation and depression.  Cofounder  and CEO Kyle Rand recalls how his grandmother, a former nurse and college professor, swiftly faded into dementia after transitioning into a memory-care facility. 

“She fell into that classic social-isolation trap and just spent a lot of time in her room watching TV,” says Rand, who at the time was studying biomedical engineering and neuroscience in college. The potential of VR technology seemed to provide a compelling alternative: “When I tried it, I realized that this was part of the solution. You can put this on and go anywhere.”

Rendever  began by testing VR programming aimed at older people at assisted living facilities in the Boston area; now the company’s products are being used in facilities in 30 states. The idea is that VR technology can provide a window to activities and experiences that would be unattainable in real life — from simple travel destinations to powerful scenes from the user’s past. And it isn’t used just to distract residents; Rand emphasizes that group experiences in VR are a “platform for community building.”

He recalls a former Air Force pilot struggling with social isolation after moving into assisted living; he was shown a VR simulation of an aircraft in flight. “All of a sudden he was sitting in a pilot seat again,” Rand says, “and the stories started bubbling out of him."

Virtual travel experiences are already one of the top nongaming draws of the technology. You can stroll the streets of distant cities and get at least a vaguely satisfying simulation of what real travelers experience. Once this feature is honed, it’s not hard to see how liberating VR could be for less mobile or disabled people. The elderly mountaineer with the bad knees might finally conquer K2; the homebound nature lover could spend an hour in the woods. 

And when social features are introduced, people can share these virtual experiences with friends and family. In the future, real-time VR might allow the homebound to enjoy vacations that seamlessly blend the real and the digital. “The ultimate thing will be when you can go on a trip with your family,” marvels Furness. Say you want your mom in Ohio to join you on a stroll in Paris. If you have a small 360-degree camera  livestreaming  your experience, she can plug into your reality and see and hear everything.

Similarly, cameras set up in the home could allow virtual visits from distant friends or family members anytime. “What this is,” Furness explains, “is a way of moving minds. It’s a transportation system for the senses.”

Other therapeutic uses are emerging. Physician Sonya Kim runs a program called Aloha VR at One Caring Team near San Francisco. Aloha VR customizes virtual reality experiences to reconnect older clients to life. “We find out what their past passion has been, then pick programs that fit their interest level,” says Kim. “Every patient is different. We tailor it to their cognitive level and their mobility issues.” 

She has found VR to be particularly effective for patients with dementia; it seems to treat anxiety, depression and other symptoms of social isolation: “[Patients] are calmer, are sleeping better and in a better mood. We’re not curing dementia. But patients are happy.” 

VR can even, sort of, move through time. In tests, the Rendever team showed older subjects VR simulations, based on Google Street View photos, of former homes and childhood neighborhoods — places they may not have seen in decades. For many, the experience is almost too powerful. “If you can take someone back to a place that’s meaningful to them, the emotions that come back to them are extremely profound,” says Reed Hayes, a cofounder of Rendever. 

Along the way, the Rendever team learned that VR has a key advantage over other kinds of technology: It’s easier to use. “There’s a stereotype that seniors and technology don’t mix, but really, that just means the tech is poorly designed,” says Rand. “All they have to do is put the headset on and they’re immediately having the experience.” 

Hayes agrees. “It’s not putting a laptop in front of an older person and saying, ‘Now you can go Google things,’ ” he says. “It’s, ‘Put this on and transport yourself to another world.’ ”

Medical uses for VR

Back in the 1990s, Tom Furness was surprised to learn that the biggest market for his Virtual Vision was dentists, who would have patients put on the goggles during procedures. He had stumbled onto something important: virtual reality’s potential as a pain reliever. 

That led to experiments with VR among burn victims and children with leukemia undergoing painful treatments. A program called SnowWorld was developed at the University of Washington in 1996, specifically for severe-burn patients. The illusion of being transported to an icy scene was so powerful, it could overcome even the intense pain of wound care. 

More recently, virtual reality has been used to treat post-traumatic stress among military veterans and to relieve chronic pain via immersion into meditative environments. Walter Greenleaf, a behavioral neuroscientist at Stanford University’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab, is a pioneer in these innovative therapeutic uses. He helped to develop VR systems to aid people with phobias, drug addictions and depression. He believes it is healing that will prove to be VR’s métier. 

“Entertainment and gaming are going to drive the price down, but what’s going to really make a difference is wellness and health,” he says. 

Stroke patients who need to relearn how to use their limbs in recovery could work with a virtual therapist to help guide their movements and “slow down the speed of the world,” Greenleaf notes, allowing them to practice physical gestures at half-speed. 

The same principle could help people with autism model facial expressions and practice interpersonal interactions in an artificial setting. There’s also some good evidence that VR therapy can address cognitive issues in older people, delivering to us the long-promised “brain game” that brings on lasting, meaningful improvements in executive function. 

Other applications of VR focus on injury recovery. The technology’s ability to fool the senses and make the body feel what isn’t there can help train those with prostheses to use artificial limbs, rewiring neural pathways for object sensing. Eventually virtual and mixed reality could be exploited to dramatically improve medical treatment. 

Some of the most startling VR applications beyond health involve what’s called the Proteus effect — the emergence of an emotional bond between the user and his or her computer-generated avatar. In one famous study, young subjects were digitally aged in VR, which encouraged them to make better financial decisions: Inhabiting the skin of their future selves made the concept of saving money for retirement emotionally meaningful. 

Like Furness, Greenleaf has lived through several of the hype cycles that have accompanied VR’s development. “You can’t believe how exciting it is for me,” he says, seeing it on the cusp of mainstream adoption. But he also voices some cautionary notes. 

“We’re fooling the brain’s visual system with VR,” he says. “Some of the long-term health effects we just don’t know.” There are also ethical concerns. One technology writer suggested using VR on prisoners, essentially confining them in a “rehabilitative” 24/7 virtual experience in lieu of offering human interactions. 

The potential for abuse of virtual reality could spark moral and public health outcries. “It’s like we’re splitting the atom,” Furness observes. “We’ve unleashed an enormous power. When you go into an immersive VR world, you never forget it.” 

Sensitive to potentially coercive or subversive uses, Furness has founded the Virtual World Society, to bring together “people who want to embrace the good side of virtual reality, to be the consciences of VR” and provide a type of Good Housekeeping seal of approval for content. “The people who first developed this technology are in a position now to be able to guide it and use it responsibly,” Furness says. “As the old guy who’s sort of the touchstone, my mantra is, ‘We have to understand what VR does, not what it is.’ ”

But Greenleaf hopes that VR will become a communication platform superior to email, social media and other tools. “I think typing and texting put more barriers between people. I view this as a reversal of that — VR allows people to be with one another,” he says. “If the right people come and make use of this technology, amazing things could happen. I guess we’ll find out. It’s coming. It’s coming really fast.” 

David Dudley, a former AARP features editor, is the executive editor at Atlantic Media's CityLab.