The University of Minnesota uses VR to study Alzheimer's, death

(Tns) – When the University of Minnesota offered to experience me what it is like to die, of course I said yes.

Aren't we all pathologically curious about the undiscovered country, as Hamlet put it from, from which no traveler returns?

Except this time, fortunately, I would return because it would be a virtual death, an experience in a VR studio, which is part of the university's health science library system.

The dying experience is part of a number of VR simulations developed by a nine-year-old company based in California called Proteeed Labs.

They have created immersive experiences from the first person about how it is that dementia, Alzheimer's or Parkinson's diseases, eyesight or hearing loss are socially isolated or experience aging as a LGBTQ person. And how it is to die.

Admittedly, these experiences do not sound as funny as VR to play a video game or to control a jet aircraft. Instead, the simulations are developed as training instruments to promote empathy and understanding for the supervisors of older adults.

At the University of Minnesota, the students of the medical study have used embodied experience in laboratories to understand the perspective of a woman called Beatriz, who deals with frustrations, confusion and family dynamics, while they are experiencing on the further development of phases of Alzheimer's.

Students of the university's Mortuary Science program have experienced a embodied laboratory simulation in which they take on the role of a 74-year-old man named Alfred, who has age-related macular degeneration and hearing loss with high frequency. He fights to hear and understand what relatives and supervisors say to him.

“You feel frustrated and annoyed that you are treated like a child,” said Janet McGee, instructor of the Mortuary Science program, the students who experience the Alfred Labor.

McGee said the result for students could be better sensitive hearing skills, which will be useful if they hit funeral regulations for customers with age -related perception issues.

I am not sure if I will be a caregiver or whether I will experience Alzheimer's or macular degeneration myself.

But I know that one day I will die. For this reason, I wanted to try the laboratory experience at the end of the lifetime, which are called Clay Lab.

You take on the role of a 66-year-old man named Clay Crowder, who deals with the reality of a lung cancer diagnosis of terminal lung cancer in stage IV.

“Strong emotional reactions are common,” warns an introduction to the VR experience.

“It's intense,” said Carrie Shaw, embodied Labor CEO and founder. “We wanted to show how active dying is.”

Experience includes a scene in which her wife and daughter bring her to a doctor's appointment.

“I'm afraid that there is no good news,” says an oncologist. “Unfortunately, the latest scan that was repeated did not look good.”

My daughter is in rejection. “You will repeat the treatments right?”

However, the doctor says that the continued treatments will probably harm more than benefit. It carefully leads us to accept palliative care is now the best option.

Next I am in my last days and see myself susceptible to my feet and look at my feet and upper body.

For a short time my skin becomes transparent and I see my fighting organs and my chest moved as I gasped with discomfort. When I hold my hands up, my fingertips look bluish. But I get some painkillers and my breathing and heart rate simplification.

I look around in my house in the bedroom. My loved ones are gathered around me and watch me carefully, but sad. I hear them talk about diapers, catheter and the racing secretions from my lungs.

A hospice nurse recommends giving me a feeding tube that stands in the way of the “natural process” of my trip.

“At that time he is really not hungry,” she says about me.

I fade in and from consciousness.

“Your eyes are open. Good morning, sound. How are you?” the hospice nurse says at some point. Apparently not so hot, I think.

My daughters notice how cold my body feels. Then the hospice nurse sends in the room for my wife at some point because “it is time”.

“Did you tell him that it is okay for him?” She asks everyone.

One of my daughters reads from a poem with tears while my vision fades. Then everything disappears, and everything I see is a bird – a blue Heron, I think – fly away to a white light. I didn't create these pictures in my head. They are all part of the VR program.

“From an emotional point of view, our intention was to give some space,” said Shaw about this scene.

Next, the VR program shifts my perspective. I seem to float somewhere near the ceiling of the room. I look down on my own body. My loved ones give me the last hugs and kisses. I can hear the supervisors speak to me.

“We will bathe them and put their skin lettership,” they say. I watch my body thrown out of my house on a Gurney and put it in a vehicle.

McGee said that she could see the Clay-VR experience used by corpse students because corpse manufacturers see the need to work with caregivers at the end of life.

“I don't think much about death,” said Ryn Gagen, a 29-year-old librarian for medical faculties. But trying out the tonal experience caused the relatives and supervisors who could be at their side at the end of life.

“I think of myself in this situation in the future,” said Gagen. “I should think about what I want to happen what I want around me.”

I had a similar reaction. When I went through the embodied laboratory experience, I was hit by the silent, miserable faces and sad that stared at me.

In real life (or in death) I think that I like a television in the room with some of my favorite films. Maybe “Casablanca” or “The man who shot Liberty Valance”. Or a few carefree Ernst -Glubitsch comedies such as “being or not being” or “ninotchka”.

Alternatively, I would like to play music, maybe Gershwin's “Lullaby for String Quartet” or Joplins “Betha” Waltz.

Even if I am not always awake to appreciate it, at least there would be something pleasant for people around me while waiting.

If I have seen my future dead myself, I also prompted myself to take a further training course to finally write a will. As Hamlet said, the willingness is when it comes to death.

Shaw said her company grown out of her background when she was a nurse for her mother who suffered from the early Alzheimer's disease.

Shaw used adhesive tape to cover part of the lens of safety glasses, and asked other people who took care of her mother to try her out so that she could understand the visual problems that her mother had.

Shaw, who studied a biomedical visualization and game development at the University of Illinois Chicago, said that the videos with real people have a greater impact on viewers than computer -generated scenes. The aim is to remind the supervisors that they have to do with one person, not just with an illness.

She said users of the embodied laboratories experience with the medical faculties, nursing schools and social work programs at universities. They are also used for the training of government agencies such as VA Medical Centers as well as for state and local social service programs as well as for senior, domestic care and hospice programs.

The VR experiences contain videos that show how real human actors who interact relatives and supervisors with users do not interact with computer-generated images or animations.

“We really try to grasp the story of real experiences,” said Shaw.

Leave a Comment Cancel reply