How Virtual Reality Therapy Can Treat Chronic Pain

“I didn’t think a human could experience that much pain,” Greenport, New York, resident Bob Jester says in a video from the website Immersive Health.

In August 2016, Jester fell from a rooftop and broke 19 bones, mainly in his back and legs. After multiple surgeries, he found himself with several rods and 16 bolts in his back and was facing excruciating pain that kept him awake at night. That’s when he started using virtual reality therapy as part of a chronic pain treatment program.

Each day, when he felt as though he needed to pop another pain pill, Jester would put on the virtual reality (VR) goggles and become immersed in a world that distracted him from his pain. It would take his attention away from the pain, he says, and soon he learned to train his brain to do that same thing for an hour or two after he used the technology. A year later, Jester has stopped using opioid pain medication and, although some doctors have told him that he will never walk again, he can now move his left leg.

Chronic pain affects 50 million people in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control. But virtual reality therapy is beginning to show results, reports a 2018 research review in the medical journal Current Pain and Headache Reports. The immersive experience distracts patients from pain enough to help them cope. For instance, a 2016 study published in PLOS One found that almost all of the 30 burn patients who used a five-minute VR application called “Cool!” reported a decrease in pain from the beginning of the session to the end. Ten said they felt no pain at all during the session. Findings like these are making virtual reality therapy a viable treatment for chronic pain.
Theory and Technology Merge

These medical approaches and other distraction-related VR therapies are based on the “gate control” theory of pain, which was first introduced in 1965, according to Pain-Health. The theory says that as pain messages travel through the nervous system, they encounter “gates” in the spinal cord. Some pain messages get through and reach the brain, while others do not. Distraction therapies give the brain a chance to send a signal down the spinal cord and close the pain gates before the signal arrives at the brain.

Several healthcare companies are merging medical theory and technology to develop chronic pain treatments that use VR. Los-Angeles-based AppliedVR is one of these providers. Since 2015, the company has developed solutions for more than 250 hospitals and 20,000 patients in eight countries globally. A variety of VR modules cover a different topic such as relaxation, breathing techniques, mindfulness meditation and positive thinking. Patients can not only learn to cope with chronic pain, anxiety or stress but also practice prepping for childbirth or an MRI scan.

The Silicon Valley-based firm CognifiSense wants to pair VR with psychological therapies to address so-called maladaptive neuroplastic changes in the brain. These are changes that occur in the brain when the nervous system responds to an injury by establishing new nerve connections or altering the strength of existing ones. Sometimes these changes drive chronic pain; in theory, retraining them could reduce that pain.

Virtual reality therapy is a relatively new kind of chronic pain treatment plan. But early results show that it may be effective. In a world where the overuse of opioid medications has led to addiction, overdose and death, finding new alternatives to dealing with pain is a priority. Relatively inexpensive and with no serious side effects, VR could offer an effective alternative.

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Virtual reality as a treatment for ADHD?

Researchers at UC Davis are investigating whether virtual reality can be used to help kids with ADHD cope in the non-virtual world. If effective, the treatment could point the way to an alternative to medication.

"Our long-term goal is to develop interventions that are widely accessible," said Julie Schweitzer, professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and a MIND Institute researcher. "If a parent could download an app to purchase the treatment, families in many places around the world could access it."

The CDC reports an estimated 5-10 percent of American children are diagnosed with ADHD. Over 50 percent of those are being treated with medication. Due to the high rate of diagnosis here and in countries like Iceland, which has the highest per capita rate of Ritalin consumption, words like "epidemic" are frequently used.

The UC Davis MIND Institute is testing virtual reality exposure therapy as a non-pharmaceutical treatment for distractibility in general, one of the hallmarks of ADHD. The study will include 50 children ages 8-12 who are highly distractible and not taking medication for ADHD.

It's ironic that technology is being tested to remediate distraction, given that screens are one of the primary drivers of distraction in the world today. But virtual reality has the benefit of offering immersive environments, those in which distractions can be precisely controlled and amplified or decreased during exposure therapies.


The idea is similar to the exposure therapies often used to help people with anxiety. Habituating a sufferer to triggering stimuli helps diminish innate responses.

For the UC Davis study, participants will wear a VR headset for 25-minute sessions as they're tested during attention-demanding tasks in a virtual classroom environment. Virtual distractions, such as class chatter or teachers walking by, are introduced to habituate the participants.


"Distractions are a frequent problem today, whether they're text messages alerting us while we're driving, pop-up ads on our computers at work or e-mail alerts coming across our phone when we're sitting in meetings," Schweitzer said. "We're hoping our findings will help others learn how to ignore distractions when they interfere with our health, learning and productivity."

VR headsets are an intriguing diagnostic and teaching tool as they offer the ability to track user responses on a subconscious level through metrics like eye and head movement. The pilot has been awarded $1 million from the National Institutes of Health.

- ZDNET

Toys

Some things I should get for the office.  Seriously.

I have no room to really walk around in my office (or home) so some of these "toys" may be the solution.

 Things keep getting cooler

The best you can from ODG currently are the R-9 Smartglasses.
These have a 50-degree field of view, 1080p resolution per eye, and 22:9 cinema wide or 16:9 aspect ratios, called the ODG R9. This model includes a 13-megapixel front-facing camera allowing for 4K video capture at 60fps or 1080p capture at 120fps, making it ideal for field work, documentation, and even live broadcasting. The device weighs just under 6.5 ounces and includes 128GB of storage, along with support for a variety of add-on modules to expand functionality.

   Pimp your Oculus



I use the Oculus Rift at work and at home. I can tell it is time to 'enhance' them. My main gripe is that I cannot use my glasses. I plan on eye surgery at some point so that will help. However, for now, I need to wear my bifocals. Since I can't I am left with contacts (that I hate) or just not seeing so well.  There is a company called VR LENS LAB that could help solve that problem but they are too pricey for me.

Seeing is one thing, being tightly tethered is another. I hate having to mess with my cables tugging me as they get wrapped around me or a chair.

Cable extenders are an easy answers. I looked on Amazon for an HDMI extender and a USB 3.0 extender. Any will work. You could use a standard HDMI cable along with an HDMI repeater . You may consider getting one or two shorter USB 3.0 extension for your towers.

          

Next on my list is the padding. The padding isn't really padding at all. It is so minimal and cheap that I still can't believe they went with that. Good news! There are 3rd Party upgrades available. I do plan on getting something.

Next on my list is getting a 3rd tower This can really help with continuous tracking of your hand controllers when you turn around. At home, my play are is small so no biggie. At work it is a little bigger. Not much, but I have run into the tracking issue. So a 3rd tower would be beneficial. Better get a long USB 3.0 extension cable.

I plan on trying some/most of these out. I am obviously not a sponsor for anyone so I must cough up cash for testing.

Fortunately, there is a free upgrade! It is software called Oculus Tray Tool. I am going to try that one out.

      The user puts the Cybershoes® over her/his shoes and takes place on a comfortable seat with lean and armrest. The seat can rotate around its axis. All movements made by the user are transferred into the virtual reality headset. While walking, the user is halfway seated, what makes the Cybershoes® comfortable and secure. The walking movement is very intuitive and the virtual space is not limited by real space.


When it comes to locomotion, current VR systems rely on handheld controllers that are used like a joystick. Users can only walk within a space that is limited by real-world space. When the user wants to proceed further, the joystick is needed for teleportation or for being moved forwards. This form of locomotion is not life-like. Thus many people experience VR-nausea that is caused by the unnatural behavior of the image projected in the VR glasses.

Coming Soon

Oculus Rift 2

Oculus announced in June 2018 that it's requiring Windows 10 in order to run new and upcoming apps and features on the Oculus Rift. The headset still works with Windows 7 and 8.1, however not all new software updates may be supported on the older OSes.

Oculus reasons this is because Microsoft no longer provides mainstream support for Windows 7 and 8.1, and Windows 10 would allow it to meet “performance standards” necessary to implement its newest upgrades.

So, it's a safe bet that Windows 10 will be a minimum system requirement on the Oculus Rift 2 from the outset.

We could potentially see the new VR headset at Oculus Connect 5, which is September 26-27 this year. Stay tuned.

It's possible we've already seen Oculus Rift 2 in the form of the tetherless Project Santa Cruz. On the other hand, Oculus Rift 2 could end up being a proper evolution of Oculus Rift, PC-cable and all.

The Looking Glass

The Looking Glass: A Holographic Display for 3D Creators

The Looking Glass - a new type of holographic display - is now available in very limited quantity.

Designed by and for 3D creators.

Over the past four years, our team of holographers, optical/mechanical/electrical engineers, Unity devs and 3D graphic artists have been working to create the magic that is the Looking Glass - a unique holographic display that uses a combination of lightfield and volumetric technologies.

Now for the first time, groups of people can see and interact with a virtual three-dimensional world on their desk, unaided by VR or AR headsets.And we’ve created a number of tools to enable 3D creators to easily bring their work to life in the Looking Glass.

There are a number of tools to enable 3D creators to easily bring their work to life in the Looking Glass. 

•   All of the Looking Glass apps shown on this page and our website were made using our HoloPlay Unity SDK. As a backer, you will get access to this SDK so that you can create interactive holographic apps of your own.

• 3D model and animations in OBJ, FBX, STL and gLTF format can be imported into the Looking Glass with a couple clicks using the Model and Animation Importer App.

• Dozens of holographic apps are available for free download using the App Library, included with every Looking Glass shipment. These include volumetric video clips, holographic film shorts, lightfield and 3D scan viewer apps, new types of holographic games, virtual pets, CT-scan/DICOM importers, a WYSIWYG 3D model previewer for 3D printing, and much more. By the end of the year, creators will also be able to share their own apps via the Library with Looking Glass owners around the world. 

• An exporter directly from Maya will also available for free download, with live viewports from Maya, Zbrush, Blender, Tinkercad, and Solidworks in development, to be made available for free to all Looking Glass backers.

Will it Sink or Swim? For now, it's floating.

Last week’s Magic Leap reveal landed with precious little enchantment, and more the type of thud one might expect from a whale hitting a well-waxed gym floor. It’s not exactly an uncommon state affairs, either. In fact, it’s an issue that’s been common to a number of high-profile AR launches.

Over at VentureBeat, Jeremy Horowitz has nailed down an explanation for this problem. It’s the result of a fundamental disconnect between the capabilities of the high-end wearable devices we’ve seen and the rather more prosaic options available to non-wearable products. Or, in his words: “The crux of AR’s issue is that there’s no affordable wearable hardware out there. There’s wearable hardware, but it’s not affordable. And there’s affordable hardware, but it’s not wearable.”

Some readers pushed back against my own withering critique of Magic Leap’s demo, for which I make no apologies. Given that the company has received $2.3B in funding, it’s reasonable to expect more than a blurry rock-throwing monster. But it may be worth unpacking why that demo is so uninspired. A small rock monster whose missile strikes an external wall and crumbles may be technically impressive, inasmuch as it shows a holographic element responding to a real-world surface. But what it doesn’t show is any way for that capability to be either independently useful (like an egg timer) or jaw-droppingly immersive (like the idea of a whale that can breach through the solid floor of one’s viewing space).

This tension between what hardware can accomplish, and what customers are willing to pay for, seems to lie at the root of many complex problems with both AR and VR. In some cases, the issues are made that much tougher to solve simply because showing the features of the underlying hardware is genuinely difficult. Starting with the 3-D push almost a decade ago, we’ve seen manufacturers ramp up a number of technologies that are hard to showcase if people aren’t watching the demos live and in person. Other factors, like battery life, software support, and integrated hardware performance have presented profound challenges as well.

Until we find a way to start closing some of these gaps, I’m not optimistic that AR or VR will grow particularly well.

Experience Oculus Rift & HTC Vive With A Single Cable

A new standard called VirtualLink will let next-gen VR devices use the same type of cable.

One of the problems with setting up a virtual reality (VR) system is that a lot of the cables and connectors are entirely proprietary. For example, an Oculus Rift cable will only work with an Oculus Rift. If your cable develops a problem it can be expensive to replace. A new industry consortium will soon chance that with the introduction of the new VirtualLink specification.

The VirtualLink consortium is being led by well-known industry names such as Nvidia, Oculus, Valve, AMD and Microsoft who have collaborated to introduce a new specification that will allow next-generation VR headsets to connect with PCs or other devices using a high-bandwidth USB Type-C cable.

The new connection has been labelled as an Alternate Mode of USB-C, and it allows for VR setup to be simplified and sped up, making the process easier for consumers, removing one of the barriers towards mass adoption for VR.

The adoption of the new standard means that VR requires fewer ports, which means immersive experiences are now possible for users who own smaller devices with fewer ports, such as lightweight notebooks.

The VirtualLink standard has been purpose-built for VR, and has been optimised for latency and bandwidth demands, a crucial component of ensuring a smooth and comfortable VR experience for users. VirtualLink allows for four high-speed HBR3 DisplayPort lanes, which are scalable for future requirements; a USB3.1 data channel can support streaming data from high-resolutions sensors and cameras as well as up to 27 watts of power.

“At Oculus, we’re committed to making VR easily approachable for a wide variety of people,” said Nate Mitchell, head of Rift, at Oculus. “A consolidated connection point is critical in removing barriers to experiencing high-powered PC VR. With the adoption of VirtualLink technology, purpose-built for VR, we look forward to helping push the industry forward into the next phase of VR.

Sansar

SECOND LIFE in VR
in Public Beta

Sansar, the VR platform by Second Life creator Linden Lab, is now available for everyone to explore. The public "creator beta" follows a private "creator preview," which allowed developers and aspiring level designers to try Sansar's building tools. That period was crucial given, like Second Life, Linden Lab is banking on the community to populate Sansar with interesting experiences. Today, there are "hundreds" of places to explore, including museums, theaters and tropical temples. Some are virtual postcards, while others have games and stories inside them. Everything is free to try too, whether you're playing on a PC, Oculus Rift or HTC Vive.


Last week the team behind AltSpaceVR, one of the most popular social VR , announced it would be closing down next month. The company had run into funding problems, and outlined in a frank blog post how it had struggled to secure a new funding round. Linden Lab is hoping to avoid a similar fate through its unique business model, which involves taking a small cut of marketplace purchases. With Sansar, anyone can design and upload a virtual object — a chair, a car, anything really — and then sell it to other users. The recipient can then use it to speed-build their own experience, whether it's a private home or a bombastic game for the public.



Everyone can create three personal lots, or "experiences," for free. The "Creator" subscription, which costs $9.99 per month, takes that to five and promises speedier customer support over email. The "Super Creator" tier, meanwhile, comes with 10 experiences, even faster email responses and live web chat. The "Professional" package, finally, grants you 20 experiences, email, web chat and phone support for $99.99 per month. Pricing could change in the future, however, depending on user feedback during the creator beta. Linden Lab says it's also working on entrance fees, so creators can charge users access "on the door" for specific experiences.

Inside Sansar, you can create an avatar, speak to other people and pick up objects — the usual social MMO fare. While it's playable with a monitor, mouse and keyboard, Linden Lab has clearly designed it with VR headsets in mind. It's a novel experience that Facebook has since tried to replicate with its VR app Spaces. The difference with Sansar is its deep, but newcomer-friendly level builder; Linden Lab hopes everyone will craft their own experiences that slowly attract new people to the platform.

Still, it's unclear how popular virtual reality will become. Oculus Rift and HTC Vive sales are stable, but slower than some people expected. Linden Lab is bullish about the medium's future, but it's telling that Sansar is also playable through a laptop or PC. If you want to try the beta out for yourself, the Sansar app is available to download through the company's website.